Today’s book review for the Books to Buy for Christmas series comes from the great Kevin Martineau a pastor from Canada, a great encourager and a social media guru.

Kevin recommends the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: Unleash the Power of Life in Christ by Pete Scazzero, a book I am familiar with and personally think is very worth reading for any Christian.

Over to Kevin:

Three and a half years ago, after a forced sabbatical (i.e. medical leave) I began a new chapter in my journey with God.  I realized that there was a huge disconnect in my life.  Up to this point I had always compartmentalized my life into very distinct and separate parts that rarely if ever touched each other.

I did not see myself as a “whole” person created in the image of God.  I did not understand that image included physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual and social dimensions. I did not see that ALL of these dimensions were important.  I had only placed my emphasis on the spiritual dimension.  Having this mindset led to some very destructive consequences in my life.

During this journey, I came across Pete Scazzero’s book “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.”  Everything that Scazzero was describing in the book really resonated with me.  It made sense.  The thesis of the book is this: It’s impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.

I recognized that I was very emotionally immature (I still am but I am making baby steps toward maturity now:) and it was dramatically affecting my spirituality and the other dimensions of my life.  Like Scazzero describes of his own journey, I was avoiding conflict in the name of Christianity, I was ignoring my anger, sadness and fear, I was dying to the wrong things and I was living without boundaries.

In this gut honest book, Scazzero outlines his journey and the signs of having an emotionally unhealthy spirituality. He then provides seven biblical, reality tested pathways to live the abundant and full life that Christ meant for us to live.

These seven pathways are:

1. Know yourself that you may know God – becoming your authentic self.
2. Going back in order to go forward – breaking the power of the past.
3. Journey through the wall – letting go of power and control.
4. Enlarge your soul through grief and loss – surrendering to your limits.
5. Discover the rhythms of the daily office and Sabbath – stopping to breathe the air of eternity.
6. Grow into an emotionally mature adult – learning new skills to love well.
7. Go the next step to develop a “rule of life” – loving Christ above all else.

I highly recommend this book. It has radically affected my relationship with God, my marriage and my church.  Scazzero also hosts a yearly conference at his church in Queens, New York.  If you get the chance I would recommend going!

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Thank you, Jennie. I’ve never read it… so maybe you could buy it for one of us for Christmas? 🙂

Here are all the books that have been recommended thus far:

If you click on any of these book links and subsequently purchase one, I will get a small commission from Amazon. I have decided that all commissions will go toward my family’s Well Fund, to try to build a well for a needy community in Africa.