Living in the Freedom of the Spirit - Week #5

This week we read chapters 5 and 6 which follow up on the general chapter on human emotions or feelings. I'm going to take each chapter separately and essentially cite some highlights from them that will pretty well speak for themselves:

Chapter 5: Where Did We Go Wrong?
In speaking of what to do with our emotions ("very powerful but unreliable motivators of behavior"), Marshall says: "...neither ignoring nor suppressing emotions ever really succeeds. All that happens is that they are driven underground where they work just as powerfully as before, while we work out different reasons to justify our actions or attitudes."

He goes on to make an important observation: "When we turn to Scriptures...we discover that the emotions are unreliable not because God made them to be so, but because something happened to them. It is part of the problem that entered with the Fall."

(For those of you who have this book in hand, look carefully at the two diagrams that he gives showing Adam before the fall then fallen humanity. They are very helpful...)

Since the whole of human nature was affected by the fall, it's not only the emotions that are not reliable but all areas of the human soul. As it relates to the emotions, the author says that the results were: perversion (we're attracted to sin and obedience but have negative feelings toward a perfect and loving God), and disintegration (the human spirit cut off from God causing the whole being to fall into disarray since the human spirit in union with God is meant to be the commanding part of the person).

Quoting Tom Marshall: "The result is anarchy. Every part of human nature now strives for rule, or at least for autonomy. With some people it is the intellect that dominates...there are those whose lives are ruled by their emotions...Then there are people dominated by a very strong will...Lacking an integrating principle, fallen humanity is always under severe tension, in many cases coming apart at the seams...The result is unbearable inner strife."

Chapter 6: Emotional Hurt
In this chapter the author begins by pointing out how important it is for us as children to respond to our environment emotionally, and while not all unpleasant emotional experiences are damaging, if a particular trauma or stress is more than we can cope with at the time, critical hurt or damage can take place and affect us long-term. This can show up in our adult life sometimes in strong emotional reactions to situations that don't merit that degree of response.

Evidences of emotional hurt:

• Great difficulties in the area of personal relationships
• Very poor self-image or self-hatred (which we sometimes confuse as being Scriptural self-denial) - this can be expressed in various ways, such as extreme shyness, judgmentalism of others, a drive to prove oneself...
• Pessimistic outlook on life
• Severe attacks of spiritual doubt and a loss of assurance of salvation

Sources of inner hurt: in general, emotional wounds can be caused "by traumatic emotional experiences that are beyond our capacity to handle at the time" of its occurence (i.e., bereavement, marriage breakdown, job failure, childhood deficits, loss of health or reputation, et.)

When trauma happens in childhood, it is usually critical because of how vulnerable the human personality is in the formative years. Some people carry within themselves a general sense of "unconditional badness" and worthlessness as a result of early deprivations in life.

Parents are often the primary source of woundedness, and it's not always because of what they have done wrong but may be because of what they have NOT done. Every child is born with two fundamental needs: the need for love and the need for worth/significance..."love needs to be experienced; and for it to be experienced, love has to be expressed towards us...Parents need to express their love for their children - and do it often - both in words and actions."

"...in very broad terms, the child looks to mother to meet his love needs, but looks to father to meet his need for significance." Frank Lake, in his book Clinical Theology, says that the child needs the gracious smile of the mother (unconditional love) and the affirming voice of the father (affirming the goodness of the child's identity as son or daughter).

Tom Marshall gives a good warning about the difference there is among people, saying that not all children respond the same way to similar circumstances, so what might do deep psychological damage to one may not have the same effect on another. This is why it's so important to trust the Holy Spirit to do the work and not automatically assume that everyone is affected in the same way.

So what is it that happens when a personal has been hurt emotionally? Simply put, emotional growth stops. "We may grow up physically, intellectually, socially and even spiritually but certain parts of our emotional development are held back in a state of immaturity."

I want to say in closing this particular posting that all of us have sinned and all of us have been sinned against. No parents nor authority figures ever do it all right, which means that all of us have not only sinned but been sinned against early in life. So we shouldn't be surprised that we need the healing grace of God along with His saving grace. For many years I didn't acknowledge this because I didn't want to dishonor my godly and wonderful parents, even though they themselves openly acknowledged where they had sinned against me and asked my forgiveness. I now understand that I honor them more by facing where they failed me, forgiving them, receiving healing and blessing them for the wonderful persons they were and the good things they did for me.

For next week let's read chapters 7 and 8; although chapter 7 is only 2 pages long, it is absolutely core to all of this so please read it carefully and more than once, if possible. Let its truth soak in deeply, because without it, there is no hope of genuine healing. Blessings on you this week!