Processing Emotions

The quotes in this article are from The Five Signs of a Spiritually Immature Christian: How to Spot a spiritual infant by Dan Foster. His article(s) are available on Medium via paid membership.

https://medium.com/backyard-theology/the-five-signs-of-a-spiritually-immature-christian-076676cabe7e

If you enjoy reading articles on various subjects including faith, psychology, and personal growth Medium is a great source. A person subscribes for a yearly account wherein you can read an unlimited number of articles. A person can also write articles, respond to comments, and interact with authors and other readers! Consider reading from authors who have different perspectives from your own. Dan Foster presents helpful ideas that have assisted in self-reflection and understanding others.

The purpose of this post is to encourage reflection on how we can better process emotions in the context of spiritual maturity. While I use A.I (Night Cafe Studio) and Canva Pro to create images, I don’t use A.I. for writing articles.

The journey is like pathways through a forest. There are various trails and options. How we walk matters!

Processing? Why?

Life is a journey! As we walk through different “seasons” of trials and victories, we mature. How we process emotions impacts our over-all mood and impact on the people in our lives. It’s important to understand that emotions are indicators of our inner thoughts and underlie how we interact with the people around us. Learning to process, accept, and release our feelings/emotions enables us to develop resilience and continue to move forward in our journeys.

The opposite of moving forward is to remain stuck. This leads to negative thought patterns, immature ways of dealing with stress, and the people that we encounter/serve in our daily lives. Repressed emotions eventually resurface, often in the form of anger, depression, or anxiety.

Individuals who act aggressively, demonstrate hostility, and avoidance are those who haven’t processed and released painful emotions. On a positive note, ever noticed how some people seem to radiate joy, hope, and love? We radiate our feelings and thoughts into the world around us and people notice from our facial expressions, and other non-verbal communication clues.

Recognizing, facing, and healing our inner wounds sets us free to love ourselves, God, and others. It’s the unhealed, repressed wounds that fuel unrighteous anger, resentment, and hatred. Consider Jesus’ example: He faced severe hostility, rejection, false accusation (accused of working with devil); yet, He lived a life of grace, compassion, hope, and love for others.

Walking in the woods, hiking, or cycling are great ways to refresh in nature! Taking time daily to exercise, reflect, and let difficult emotions emerge promotes health and well being.

Dan’s Five Signs of Immaturity

First, Certainty: person who claims to have all the answers and fears mystery or uncertainty. The opposite is acceptance. A mature follower of Christ accepts that there are unknown(s), no “easy” answers, and that life and faith aren’t always black and white. The whys of events in our lives are more complex than we are aware. At times, God feels distant or absent–in the moment when we feel we need Him present. This doesn’t mean we are living in sin, forsaking Him, or becoming crazy!

Second, Self-Loathing: someone who constantly beats themselves up over sins, mistakes, failures, flaw, past events, etc. Mature people in faith understand and incorporate grace–ability to rest in Christ knowing that His redemption is sufficient. If someone loathes themselves, then it’s easy to project onto others and see his/her own flaws in others!

Third, Defensiveness: individual who has to defend the Bible, the church, or a particular interpretation, or theological belief system. Mature followers understand that it’s okay to not fully understand all aspects of God or “push” personal thoughts/interpretations onto others. Also, ask yourself, does God need us to defend Him? Others don’t have to agree with us to be loved by God! Is our perspective(s) the only right one? Or are we trying to conform others into something that we find “acceptable” or “desirable”? Defensiveness becomes an issue when we are getting into frequent arguments, trying to “fix” others, or pressuring others to adopt our beliefs or standards.

Fourth, scapegoating: when a person looks for someone to cast sins onto. This seems to be a regular occurrence in sermons/bible studies. Blaming a group of people (normally those outside the congregation) for a nation’s problem(s), “picking” on a particular sin or viewpoint to describe societal issues. Mature believers are self-aware and can disagree without making personal/character attacks on others. Our national and societal issues are more complex than offering simple solutions of man-made religious notions/rules.

Fifth, Self-Justification: trying to “justify” existence and find purpose in “sin management,” career success, or other things separate from or trying to “earn” God’s grace and justification (Romans). Jesus justifies us on the cross–it’s His role and job–not ours. We are called to righteous, holy living to honor Him, however; that doesn’t justify us in God’s Judgment! If we could be “good enough” then why did Jesus suffer the cross?

When weariness and hard pathways are before us, we can sit and find rest in His Presence!

Reflection Quotes:

Quote 1

Here’s a simple truth that mature people live by: Whatever we don’t process, we project.

If we do not own our own emotional baggage, we will pass it on to others.

Usually, it’s the people who are closest to us who bear the brunt of our inability to deal with our own pain, sadness, anger, anxiety, or fear.

This truth explains why we have an angry reaction to other’s actions/opinions, etc. What we don’t deal with and heal keeps re-emerging in our thoughts and actions. This baggage weights us down and ripples onto the lives of others. Often the people we love the most are the ones we disappoint, hurt, and avoid instead of working through the difficult emotions.

Quote 2

Many Christians take it a step further by trying to justify themselves not only to the world but also to God. They do it through morality and performance-based religion.

Whether they perceive it or not, many Christians have reduced their faith to a sin management program, believing that if they are “good enough,” God will accept them.

They can even impose this moral struggle on others, policing the behaviors of those around them as if God would somehow find this pleasing.

I see this tragedy playing out in our contemporary Christian society. It is turning people “off” or away from the marvelous grace of God and the Good News of the Gospel! The continual condemnation, guilt, and shame of not reading the Bible enough, not praying enough, demanding “total” purity in thought and action causes significant emotional and spiritual damage. Repentance and turning to Christ to receive His grace is a process–not a one time choice that exempts us from struggling with sin!

Guilt and shame do not lead to healthy disciples or followers of Christ! Guilt and shame leads to obsessive, compulsive, and scrupulous thought/behavior patterns. It leads a person inward instead of looking to Christ for grace, mercy, and forgiveness. If this is a struggle in your journey, Mike DeJesus has excellent free videos on YouTube. He addresses the root causes, symptoms, and solutions to these struggles.

Our emotions can be like waves on the ocean–cresting and crashing as the winds of difficulty blow over us.

The choice is ours to make daily: we accept and work on our emotions understanding that emotions are indicators of emotional health. Or we can deny, repress, and avoid. The way that we walk on our journeys matter!