Emotionally Healthy Spirituality - Becoming Your Authentic Self

Emotional health is incredibly important, something we can all grow in, and something the Bible speaks into. You can be seemingly ‘spiritual mature’ whilst remaining ‘emotionally immature’. But it’s impossible to really mature spiritually without addressing emotional maturity.

A person can be emotionally healthy without Christ. And a person can practice deep rhythms of spirituality whilst remaining emotionally immature. However…

Emotional health + deep spirituality = transformation.

Q. How were you taught to view emotions growing up? (e.g. in your family, church. Were they encouraged, seen as good/bad)

Proverbs 4:23 says: above all else guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life.

In John 7:37-38 Jesus says

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

Jesus wants all of us. When we give full access to Jesus of our hearts then he will bring life in all its abundance to us.

Q. What is the state of your heart?

Q. Can you recall instances where you have grown spiritually but been emotionally immature?

Read the following passage together out loud

Matthew 13:3-9
“3 A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear*.”*

The seed here is the gospel and the soil is our hearts. Jesus is concerned with the health of our hearts.

Jesus explains this in Matthew 13:19
When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. They had hard hearts

Are there ways that your heart has become hardened? This can happen in a number of ways:

1. Desensitize our hearts through sin

2. Disconnect from our hearts through pain

3. Distance ourselves from our hearts through neglect

Take some time to wait, listen. Perhaps play some quiet music. Ask God to reveal any area of your heart that has become hard.

Discuss together what you feel God saying or commit to sharing this with someone in the next couple of weeks.

Practice sharing some of the emotion you are feeling.

Pray together. Ask God for courage to embrace your emotions and ask for His healing in any areas raised.