Why do adults fight, hurt one another, act selfishly, and often regret our own undisciplined behavior? Why do we often fail to fulfill our potential, our life goal of glorifying God?
I teach a course at the College of Missionary Aviation entitled Interpersonal Skills. It can be a challenging and complex subject, but it is exciting in its very practical application of understanding oneself and achieving better relationships with others.
In my seemingly ever present quest of simplifying complex issues for clearer understanding (my three brain cells are often crying for the basics), I’ve distilled human relationships down to the following analytic “formula” if you will: Our successful fulfillment of God’s purpose for our life is directly proportional to our Emotional Maturity, plus or minus our Spiritual Maturity, plus or minus our Physiological Health. Or, for ease of memory: EM +/- SM +/- P = (is proportional to) our life fulfillment and glorification of God.
Emotional Maturity. Many books can (and many have) be written on the subject, but emotional maturity involves things like anger management, impulse control, narcissism, self-discipline, etc. For example, a person can be chronologically in their 50s or 60s but have the emotional maturity of a teenager. I’m sure you can think of personal examples amongst friends or family and national politicians. At work, at home, on the playing field, on the national stage, in text messages…
Spiritual Maturity. Although we may be Christian, we all accept Christ at different points in our lives and grow spiritually at differing rates. The apostle Paul admonishes us to be be patient with the spirituality “younger” Christians. Spiritual maturity is exemplified by the fruit of the Spirit, as listed in Galatians 5:22-23: “love, joy, peace, patience… self-control…” and by our obedience to God’s commandment to love Him with all of our heart, soul and mind, and our fellow man/woman likewise (Mark 12:28-34).
Physiological health. We are physical beings in this world. Our actions and thoughts are affected by what we eat, drink and by our hormones in particular. For example, our sleep quality and testosterone levels, and drug/alcohol abuse will affect our ability of anger management and impulse control.
Space constraints prevent the presentation of the many real life scenarios we discuss in class (road rage, communications problems, anger management, anxiety, etc.), but here are a few good books on related subjects which I refer to in class: Emotional Intelligence for the Christian, by M. B. Smith; The Listening Life, by Adam McHugh; and Personality Plus – How to Understand Others by Understanding Yourself, by Florence Littauer. I am also a fan of the Myers-Briggs personality/temperament system. And of course, the Bible.
Prayers for a fulfilling life, lived for the glory of God!
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