Ministers Desk 3 February

As we go through life we can be left pretty beat emotionally at times.  The people and situations that we encounter at work, in our neighbourhoods, dealing with businesses, at church and even in our family can take a toll on our emotional health.  We can avoid some of these emotionally damaging situations.  However, for many of them we have no choice but to endure the circumstances.  For instance, we have heard and read this past week of people still recovering emotionally from the floods of 2011 and having to face a similar situation again this week, and being emotionally brittle.

 

How do you deal with your emotional scars?  Some people will ignore them and proceed as if nothing is wrong.  Others will run away from the source of the trouble, forgetting that they take the pain with them.  Others will act out in ways that are in appropriate, hurting others in through their own pain.  What these people all forget is that emotional pains need to be addressed.  Just like a physical illness, damaged emotions need to be treated so that the person can return to wholeness.

 

For Christ followers a key aspect of finding emotional healing is through turning to Christ.  Time after time we read of Jesus performing healing miracles that address physical, emotional and spiritual sickness.  The same power of Christ is available to us today, if we look to him and offer our brokenness and pain.  Over the coming weeks in worship we will be studying Psalm 23 and the promise of God to give us protection, provision and healing as we deal with the troubles of life.  This series will last until Easter.  As I prepare each sermon I will be praying for each of us that we will recognises our hurts and the causes of them and offer them to God and in return receive his healing and renewing.

 

Some people may wish to dig deeper into this area.  Two books that I’d recommend are The Emotionally Health Church and its sequel Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.  Both are written by Peter Scazzero, the Pastor of a church in New York.  In each book he looks at six principles of emotional health – 1 Look beneath the surface, 2 break the power of the past, 3 live in brokenness and vulnerability, 4 receive the gift of limits, 5 embrace grieving and loss, 6 make incarnation you model for loving well.  He discusses how these areas can damage us, relationally (in the first book) and spiritually (in the second).  He also provides ways in which we can receive God’s healing and fresh beginning.

 

I have studied The Emotionally Health Church a couple of times.  It is easy to read, the concepts are very well described and it is grounded scripturally.  Yet it is not an easy book to get through.  The reader is constantly challenged with inner emotions that we’d try to ignore or run away from, but which still hurt and control us.  Ultimately though it is worth it as you come through the other side healthier and stronger.

 

Both books come with study guides that could be used by an Explore Group.  Using it in an Explore group would serve to deeper your relationships with each other as you go through some tough discussions and learning.