Emotions Matter

“Why is it that so many Christians make such lousy human beings?” So asks Peter Scazzero in his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (p.23).[1]  Scazzero goes on to share the top ten symptoms of Jesus-followers who are emotionally unhealthy. 
1.  Using God to run from God
2.  Ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness, and fear
3.  Dying to the wrong things
4.  Denying the past’s impact on the present
5. Dividing our lives into “secular” and “sacred” compartments
6. Doing for God instead of being with God
7.  Spiritualizing away conflict
8.  Covering over brokenness, weakness, and failure
9. Living without limits
10. Judging other people’s spiritual journey (p. 24).

​Meditation
Psalm 7:9--Let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous. The One who examines the thoughts and emotions is a righteous God.
 
Scazzero contends that spirituality that fails to integrate emotional health can be deadly personally, in our relationship with God, and with those around us. When we of faith substitute pretending instead of being honest and vulnerable, we set ourselves up for frustration, disappointment, and growth.
           
Are we more concerned about what people will think of us than being honest? Are we hiding insecurity and pain because we are afraid people will judge us or think less of us? How many have walked away from their faith or are isolated because of feeling trapped or stuck in their spiritual journey?  These are questions that illustrate how important emotional health is. It cannot be detached from spiritual maturity. Emotions matter.
           
God sees our thoughts. He observes our actions. But He also gave us emotion, and this is also examined. Oswald Chambers taught, “Few of us realize the power we can truly have over the emotions—or the power emotions can exert over us, if we do not bring them under the control of the Holy Ghost.”[2]
 
Inspiration
“What happens to us emotionally is not peripheral but central to our religious experience. To put it bluntly, people who are out of touch with their emotions are out of touch with God, for God speaks to us through the ebb and flow of our emotional life.”—Gordon Smith in Voice of Jesus: Discernment, Prayer, and the Witness of the Spirit

©2024 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  To receive these devotionals, go to www.firstcause.org and click the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed, subject to the inclusion of this copyright notice.     
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)
 
[1] Scazzero, P. (2006). Emotionally healthy spirituality. Thomas Nelson.
[2]Chambers, O.  (1998). Biblical ethics / The moral foundations of life / The philosophy of sin: Ethical principles of the christian life. Discovery House Publishers.