J
Jordache
Guest
My church has just started a new series for the next couple of months. I actually think that God had me start down this pathway about a year ago for preparation to go through this actual series. It's called "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality". The basic thesis is that you cannot separate emotional and spiritual health. Without one you cannot have the other. Representing Christ is about emotional health combined with contemplative spirituality. I have never been a very contemplative person, until this last year. I'm 27 years old and I'm finally learning to consider and understand my own emotions, likes/dislikes, desires, weaknesses and failures, successes both by natural giftings and by the grace of God, and my insecurities. I have become a contemplative person both in a spiritual sense (as in contemplating the life of Christ and the life He desires for me) and in a human sense (as in who I am, why i respond the way that I do, and what makes me both tick and stop ticked). Needless to say, this is a very humbling journey and I find myself discovering more and more insecurities all the time. In fact, in the last 4 days I have journaled 19 pages all coming to an understanding of some very deep identity issues and how they've been exhibited secretively in my life. Last night as I was journaling yet again, I started thinking, "Man, I'm screwed up! This sucks!" Part of this is because another group I'm a part of (an intense healing ministry) is about to talk about "embracing the process" which is embracing the fat that we will likely deal with all or most of our issues for our entire life to some degree or another. While I understand this, it has brought about a bit of hopelessness which I know is not the purpose of God. In this series (EHS) that I'm going through, one of the first chapters deals with the ways we avoid knowing ourselves and God. The last one is judgement of others. However, I believe that sometimes we avoid knowing ourselves and God by judging ourselves also. Thus, as I was judging how screwed up I am, it dawned on me (I'm sure by divine inspiation) that we are not equipped to judge ourselves either. Who are we to say "I am so screwed up. Look at how far they've come. I'll never be there. They're so ______. I'm a hopeless case." Afterall, we all fall short of the glory of God, and we are all (to some degree or another) very capable of putting up a good guise with ourselves and with others.
So the request: I don't want to judge myself unfairly and I don't want to feel hopeless in regards to my own personal growth.
So the request: I don't want to judge myself unfairly and I don't want to feel hopeless in regards to my own personal growth.
