Nothing gives more pleasure than disappointment turned to hope. It’s like the budding of a flower, petals which were shrunken in withdrawal, unraveling and stretching in beaming beatification. There is no blush — Just a brave display of approval by Him; the face-lightener, joy bringer, chin-lifting Christ. The Prize seen, we mirror Him –- reflection as in still water. Jacob looks upon his once dead son; he is alive, he is alive! Peter looks upon the once dead Christ; He too is alive. The countenance of the two is shining, a fire is lit. A narrow. Many yearn, they’re disenchanted. Others set their hearts on things, to Disparagement. The world is cruel toward certain dreams. Why? There is no furtherance, no continuance, no story-end. But, there is more to come, my friends; it is too early to quit. Here is the mistake, the hardening center, the darkening of mind. Here is…
Category: <span>God’s Psychology</span>
“All emotions are, in essence, impulses to act, the instant plans for handling life…”– Daniel Goldman from his book, “Emotional intelligence” 1995. Daniel comes from a neural-scientific point of view; were talking about raw brain. “…the brain has two memory systems, one for ordinary facts and one for emotionally charged ones,” Goldman again. He quotes Joseph LeDoux from 1989-93. When alarmed, the amygdala (emotional brain center) sends an urgent message out. “It acts before there is full confirmation.” “It frantically commands that we react to the present, in ways that were imprinted long ago.” What? Yes, Goldman says “the message the amygdala sends is often ‘out of date.’” In a personal example of this, when I was a child I was placed on a horse with great fear of falling off. I feared horses for years after, and the very childhood fear, when triggered, panicked me again and anew. Problem;…
“How we feel about how we feel.” John Gottman, marriage psychologist at the University of Washington, opened up to us the concept of “meta-emotions” or essentially “how we feel about how we feel.” Not just how we feel or even what’s our emotional makeup, but how we emotionally deal with the inward phenomena? John Gottman gives us 3 meta-emotional categories: “those in favor of emotional expression, those opposed to it, and those in favor of finding a balance between positive and negative emotions.” He admits these can be fuzzy. Nevertheless folks differing with others in their meta-emotional category may not be so well-matched. He sees his wife’s anger as, “yelling at me.” A wife with an abusive background had “lots of anger” but didn’t see the anger as a bad thing. She saw it as a source of strength. The husband had had a home life where his parents bickered…
Denial is “refusing to admit into awareness that which comes from one’s environment—e.g., what others say or do.” Job did this in Job 3. Repression is “the exclusion from awareness of troubling psychic contents.” Both definitions are from C.W. McLemore. Denial shuts out the outside; repression, what comes from within. Our fellow griever, Job, resorted to all defenses and later exposed an outward armor, in the face of God Himself. “Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breasts, that I should nurse? I call Job’s lament, “the exaltation of futility.” “For then I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept; then I would have been at rest.” Job 3:13-15 What was happening with Job? Every unconscious mechanism for the preservation of life seemed to effect its cover-up all at once, including a tough exteriored religious-duty filled response; but Job’s true colors shown brighter in the ongoing.…
I find that folks want to know what is “normal,” so to speak. Does a Christian fail a lot? Does he or she sin just a little? Maybe, less and less, or do we grow weaker with age and sin more? Where does our Achilles’ heel manifest itself? What is the operating mode for living above the fragility? Do we have a besetting sin? — Gray areas? Does the free volition function freely always, or is it hindered? Do most rebound from sin and failure regularly; agreeing with God about our sin, isolating sin from our true identity, forgetting what is past? Is it common to frequently commit the sin of unbelief in still living in guilt or regret? How’s the soul? Is there harmony? What branch of the soul dominates you? Are you an avid thinker, or a determiner; a feeling kind of person, or full of fear, or self-conscious? Are…
“For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ” are the words of Philippians. What are these bowels? “All real spiritual love is but a portion of Christ’s love which yearns in all who are united to Him.” Henry Alford. Okay, Christ is the source, but what of bowels? “The word ‘bowels,’ in the Scriptures denotes the upper viscera – the region of the heart and lungs. That region was regarded as the seat of affection, sympathy, and compassion…” Barnes notes. Dr. Stevens associated bowels with emotions also. Are these the same bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering that we are to put on in Colossians 3:12? Yes, not just the words but the emotions. Caroline Leaf says that “when the thoughts move into the conscious mind, we feel the emotions of the thoughts.” So, when Bible words are invested…
Hope maketh not ashamed. How does it work? Penti Ikonen and Eero Rechardt say “the reaction to the absence of approving reciprocity,” is shame. Gunnar Karlson, “…the main constituents concerning shame are its anchorage in the situation to which it refers; …perpetually objectified; …the revelation of an undesired self; …a history of frozen nowness.” Lynn Jacobs PH.D says “shame fear and guilt, these are the ‘feelings about feelings;’ the boundary keepers.” “ Experiencing a forbidden feeling,” evokes shame. These afore mentioned answers exist in the realm of analysis; empirical, rational, sometimes very insightful — Psycho/Physiological stuff. Wow! “a person with internalized shame believes he is inherently flawed, inferior, and defective.” John Bradshaw. For what it is worth, we have definitions. Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed. They disobeyed. Shame began here. They became pale, disappointed, delayed, and dry. They got steep protective boundaries, they received limits, things quit…
Our lives are made for balance Christian life must have balance. We are not hanging on a few verses or a pet doctrine or a one-dimensional approach. Our lives are made for balance and the other side is fanaticism. Friends, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Why the need for equilibrium? Why the necessity for a set of scales? Longevity, baby, longevity. We’re not in a sprint, folks, this is a marathon. Twenty six/odd mile runners gotta pace themselves, even the very well trained. Well, we think, “I’m going full steam ahead; I wanna burn out for Jesus.” You will. Impacting impingement happens to all“The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Ecclesiastes 9:11. Time and chance? Yes…
In the valley of dry bones, Ezekiel speaks; to the bones and to the wind. His speaking-truth-in-love results in ligaments, muscle, skin and breath. Yes, bone-connecting sinews regather the strewn appendages into a unified whole where muscle mass enables action; skin tightens up hanging pieces for smooth movement. Finally, the Breath of Lives resuscitates the life-force. A living being has returned to us. Paul told the Christians at Ephesus to, “speak the truth in love,” and “grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ,” In Ephesians 4. The whole body, organized compactly, is united by every joint’s contribution, energy from every part, then, in poetic sequence, grows architecturally. Love does this; it’s all done in love. Not mental futility, obscured thought processing, alienated from God through agnostic tendencies, callousness, apathy, and surrender to boundless excesses; we put these off and find renewal in the spirit…
I have often said to my wife, “I’m sorry Hon.” “Sorry for what?” she comes back. “For everything.” – meaning: I’m sorry for being alive, for being human, for doing what humans do. “Oh” Honestly, I have come a long way with my human-hood; come to grips with it. My early problems with it came as a result of a subtle philosophical mistake. I believed, and it was implied by what I could grasp as “normal,” that people are fundamentally good. That is, “normal people are good.” My problem was, I was not good all the time, but liked being bad better. I really tried hard to be good, and because of this, I was guilty a lot. I was letting my conscience be my guide as I was taught to do. This philosophy led to a very low self-approval rating. Needless to say, I had a poor self-image, also…