An Emotionally Healthy Book Recommendation
"Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the soul its voice."
-The Cry of the Soul by Dan Allender and Tremper Longman
Have you ever tried to carry a cooler of water that was WAY too full? Sure, you can get it from A to B (probably), but not without sloshing water all over yourself.
This has been my experience with emotions as well. From a young age I somehow developed this idea that negative emotions were a sign that you were out of control both physically and spiritually. After all, Paul specifically says that self-control is a fruit of the spirit, not anger, right?!
So I made it my goal to put to death any signs of anger in my life.
And a funny thing happened... it worked! Not only was I the least angry person in the room, but I found that I could squash other "negative" emotions as well. You couldn't make me angry if you tried! This became the pride and joy of my faith. Sure, I had my issues, but at least I wasn't angry. While other fledgling Christians were getting upset about silly things, I was as cool as a cucumber. I was unmovable by measly human emotions. With my negative emotions out of the way, I was freed up to truly pursue God… or so I thought…
What I hadn't realized was that by squashing my emotions I had not only become emotionally "self-controlled", I had become emotionally dead.
This kind of control is not the kind of self-control Paul was talking about.
As Dan Allneder and Tremper Longmen put it in their book The Cry of the Soul,
"Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality. Listening to our emotions ushers in reality. And reality is where we meet God... Emotions are the language of the soul, they are the cry that gives the soul a voice... However, we often turn a deaf ear--through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement. We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain a false sense of control over our inner world."
You see, not only were my buried emotions keeping me from knowing God on a deeper level, all of that baggage was sloshing out all over myself and everyone around me. It sloshed out in the form of sarcasm, distance, and apathy. No matter how hard I tried to tighten the lid, the leaking wouldn't stop. It wasn't until I learned to embrace my emotions that God was able to do a deep healing work in my soul. It is in the deep work of emotional maturity that we come to know the Lord on a deeper level.
At age twenty-five I had realized that I was not a twenty-five year old Christian... but a one year old Christian twenty-five times.
And so I want to recommend to you the book that changed everything for me and set me on the path towards spiritual (and emotional) maturity. It's called "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality" by Pete Scazzero. As Pete puts it in his book, it is impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.
Thanks for reading,
Nathan Mortenson
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: https://www.amazon.com/Emotionally-Healthy-Spirituality-Impossible-Spiritually/dp/0310348498/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2OJAJE07YFAF5&dchild=1&keywords=emotionally+healthy+spirituality+by+peter+scazzero&qid=1617312843&sprefix=emotionally+healthy+spiritually%2Caps%2C178&sr=8-2
