"Ministry leaders don't usually implode from outside pressure but rather . . . they are incapacitated from within."
The premise of The Spiritually Healthy Leader is "that we are designed by God to be driven by a 'ruling passion' to live wholeheartedly coram Deo, before the face of God." And when our ruling passions are wrong, things go bad. So "this book offers powerful strategies to help identify and understand how, when left unexamined, our ruling passions can serve as functional idols, permeate every aspect of our being, and have the potential to sabotage our relationships, ministry, and life." And it shows how to bring those passions "under Christ's lordship to experience a radical, grace-filled transformation of our lives." Select thoughts follow.
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"Our spiritual health is measured by the object of our love which, in turn, is revealed by our ruling passions." "A ruling passion is an extraordinarily strong desire that rules or controls us such that our energy is given over to pursuing and achieving this goal." Such "passions are core motivations of the heart that have their genesis in experiences and take the form of vows" (which are "decisions to live a certain way") and are revealed by our behavior.
Passions are not inherently bad. Many passions are good things (peace, happiness, pleasure, success, etc.), but when we make them the ultimate thing (placing them above loving and obeying God), they become a ruling passion and are wrong.
Jesus tells us that nobody can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). "Either God is the center of your life, with your ultimate commitment to experience the satisfying supremacy of Christ and walk under his lordship, or something or someone else will be at the center." And "unless we are fully submitted to and under the control of God, we will be under the control of something else."
We often don't know our ruling passions. To discover them, we must determine our motivations and longings. And don't be surprised that we may not know those either—"many of us functionally live according to our ultimate commitments without having verbalized them." But "unless we understand and change our vows, we will be ruled by them." We must identify, confess, and ask God to redeem our ruling passions.
We need our ruling passion to be "the supremacy of Christ and intimacy with Jesus." What about our other passions? We should recognize that our longings for other things are (or can be) legitimate, but they must "be subordinated to the ultimate goal of loving and obeying God—in whatever circumstances he allows and calls us to live." When our desires are not rightly ordered, our obedience to Christ is conditional upon having our main longing fulfilled, and that ends in disaster (for yourself and those around you).
How can we make Christ our ruling passion? We need transformation. "Transformation involves renewing our minds, and an essential element of this renewal is knowing and walking in the truth." When our ruling passion is something other than Christ, we need to "(1) identify our false beliefs and comprehend why they are false, and (2) replace false beliefs with the truth."
Transformation is hard; we need to be fully aware of our own weakness. Indeed, "we are often interested in transformation, but sometimes ironically find ourselves resisting the very change we long for or the ways God uses to change us." There is not one righteous (see Romans 3:9-18). So to prepare our heart for transformation, we need to pray, pursue the truth, reflect on the motives of our heart, observe and ask about our impact, resist our resistance, and be prepared for spiritual warfare.
As we pursue transformation, we will be sanctified, where through obedience we slowly grow and become more like Christ. "The process of sanctification is a deep work of God in our hearts that takes time, honesty, a commitment to change, deep reflection, patience, and prayer. It does involve suffering, but it is suffering that leads to maturity (James 2:1-5)." It is hard—but worth it, for nothing is better than having Christ as your ruling passion.
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This fantastic book was humbling, convicting, and encouraging. In addition to the main concepts above, the author provides plenty of questions and some worksheets to help diagnose your own ruling passions. I learned a lot about myself and my core longings. Addressing my problems at the root—and learning to tell myself the truth and subordinate legitimate desires under the ultimate ruling passion of Christ—has been extremely helpful to me. (Note that I'm a work in progress . . . I'm not there yet. My ruling passions oscillate . . . the work is hard. As my pastor says, we can't model righteousness, but we can model repentance. May we not forsake the happy road that leads to His right hand.*)
Don't be fooled by the title; this book would be more appropriately named The Spiritually Healthy Christian. This is a must-read for all.
Rating: A
*a lyric from Laden with Guilt by Caedmon's Call. Beautiful song. Check it out.
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