Can you relate? You are driving to church when all of a sudden a fast paced car with tinted windows cuts into your lane. You feel in instant heat rise to your face as you flood with anger. You spew out a few choice words while your kids sit silently in the backseat bewildered at this angry stranger (which is you). While trying to give them excuses your mind drifts to the driver of the other vehicle as you grow more indignant. But when you pull into the church parking lot you spot the car and are aghast when the culprit swiftly turns into clergy parking. It’s pastor Bill stepping out of the car and he’s motioning you to roll down your window. “I’m so sorry I cut you off back there, Jenny, there was a church emergency, but I’m glad you’re here maybe you could help.” In a voice now filled with sweetness you respond, “Absolutely, Pastor, whatever you need.” Once again, your children are wide-eyed miffed at this sudden gracious stranger (which is you).
You might be surprised to discover what the underlying influence was in this scenario. It wasn’t the driver who cut off the mother. It was’t even the mother who initially got angry with the unidentified driver. It was emotion. Emotions can turn a person into a brute one minute, and a generous benefactor the next. As hard as it is to imagine, charged emotions can create an ugly competition between the old and the new in all of us. It’s only after our emotions settle down that we look back at the situation and agonize at the way we behaved.
Much in the same way that drugs or alcohol effect our physical senses, our emotions can effect our spiritual ones. Whether it’s destruction, quenching, imbalance, or impulse–it parallels intoxication. Rogue emotions may cause reckless behavior that prompts us to do or say things we might never ordinarily dreamed.
If you answer yes to any of the following questions, it might be time to examine your emotions and the power they hold in your life?
- Do you struggle with mood swings?
- Are you often sorry for something you said in the heat of the moment?
- Are you wearied by difficult emotions that seem to take over?
- Do you struggle with anxiety, insecurity, discouragement, or any other difficult emotion?
Journey Support for Faith-Based-Emotional-Sobriety is a ministry that zeros in on the influences emotions can have on the mind. Exploring why we are having certain emotions is key. Stuffing our hiding our emotions, which is often encouraged in the current culture (even Christian culture) causes guilt and shame.
Prior to joining a group participants attend a workshop on understanding how emotions work and what the bible has to say about the subject. At the completion of the workshop participants are then invited to a Journey Support Group for Faith-Based-Emotional-Sobriety. Sobriety does not mean suppressing or denying emotions, but rather, identifying detrimental underlying emotions and examining them as data. Considering our emotions in light of our faith causes a realignment, away from destructive reactions. Seeking a Higher Power and entering into ongoing accountability creates a support group the setting with the sole focus on encouraging one another on our spiritual journeys in the area of Faith-Based-Emotional-Sobriety. See Faith-Based Emotional Sobriety
Journey Support is inspired by the book Blue Skies: Beyond The Dark Clouds Of Broken Thinking and is based on Philippians 4:8 “Think on these things…” Since brokenness is a part of the world we live in it naturally influences our minds and world views, and subsequently our emotions. If you would like to find out more information contact us here.
