Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It's Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature

I don't recall my procurement of this book. I don't specifically remember any motivation or recommendation for its purchase. But I saw it in my Kindle library at a perfectly appropriate time in my life when, nearly 3 years into my marriage to an active alcoholic, I was considering divorce. Although the book is not focused on 12 steps or addiction, its focus on the individual believer's role and responsibility to be emotionally healthy and mature is appropriate for all situations, including mine, which certainly isn't unique. The moment I finished the last page, I made the decision to read it again immediately.I highly recommend this book for all persons because almost every scenario imaginable is covered! It's absolutely wonderful!!!

Great enlightenment on relationship with God! Helps one to go to another level and to take a hard look at oneself.

I had not heard of Peter Scazzero's Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (2006) until a few months ago when a pastor friend of mine mentioned it in passing. Since then, when I have shared that I was reading this book, many friends and acquaintances told me how excellent it was. I am not sure why they left me in the dark so long.As a pastor of a church, Scazzero was trying to lead through pure effort with no attention to his emotional life. Only when his relational life began to fray at the edges did he begin to take a closer look at emotion. At the outset of the book, he identified 10 symptoms of emotionally unhealthy spirituality that serve as a useful diagnostic tool.Once we understand our emotional feebleness, Scazzero spends the later half of the book talking about what to do about. He encourages a deeper look inside, acknowledging the reality of emotions as a normal part of the Christian life. I particularly appreciated chapter 6, which dealt with the concept of a dark night of the soul, an issue too frequently ignored in the Christian life. For Scazzero, I think rightly, the dark night is a normative part of the Christian life, though too often, people run from it, rather than toward it, much to their detriment.Near the end of the book, he encourages the practice of two specific disciplines--the daily office and the Sabbath--to grow in our understanding of God and understanding of self. Attention to God and delighting in his creation are essential practices that we too often hurry past.On the whole, I think this is very beneficial book. It is a relatively easy read, but if you read it, take your time and ponder what the author has to say. He writes with lists and bullet points, which many people will find desirable, though don't believe that represents naive ideas that can be cast aside quickly.

Great book we used for a study session

It’s like the cliché in the corporate world: “Big ships turn slowly.” The big ship known as institutionalized Christianity, it appears, is slowly turning from only focusing on spiritual needs to incorporating emotional and physical needs. Peter Scazzero’s book addresses a portion of this.From the looks of it, the Scazzeros have mined this space as thought leaders and are releasing books and workshops around specific demographics now (leaders, church, women, etc.). This might be a “Chicken Soup of the Soul” in the Christianity realm.However, I don’t want to diminish the real value offered in his first book, “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.” (I haven’t read the other books.) As Scazzero shrewdly points out, when the bricks-and-mortar church encourages its members to repress emotions in favor of spirituality, members find themselves wondering what they’re supposed to get out of church that’s different from the rest of the culture. True healing can’t happen, he also argues, if we keep using Biblical platitudes to repress our emotions.These are compelling arguments — so compelling in fact that it’s easy to understand why the book became a bestseller. Both of these resonated with me, certainly, as I grew up in a church that demanded I repress my emotions in favor of pithy theological statements and budgetary efficiencies.Where the book failed to resonate was where it “westernized” Christian ideas like rest, offering the kinds of solution it had railed against earlier: that is, defining rest according to culture.These hiccups pale in comparison, though, to the rest of the book, which invites its audience, using conversational language, to mature emotionally in the Christian walk.

I started this book years before I finished it. I entered into a family crisis which revealed my need for emotional searching and healing. My first read only took me a third of the way through. But, thankfully, God had it ready for me to start again when I really needed it and He has worked mightily. Don’t wait for a crisis to open up for God to work in you through this book.

I think this book should be read by every disciple of Christ. We often view ourselves as spiritually mature but after reading this book, we'll find out that being spiritually mature and emotionally mature are both intertwined and we'll soon discover we may not be as spiritually mature as we think we are, if we're not emotionally mature. I love this book. Thank you, Peter, for writing it.