If God's singleminded desire for us is that we experience the fullness of life, our spiritual journey becomes one of purification. God, in his mercy and love, working at removing those obstacles in our lives that are getting in the way of us experiencing the fullness of life. The primary obstacle is our ego, that persona that has developed to counter the emotional pain of our journey through the imperfect world of our growing up years. 

The ego doesn't surrender willingly. it has to undergo a process of humiliation as its stranglehold on our beings is released. By its very nature, this purification process is uncomfortable and painful at times, a process that is willed by God in his great love for us.

Understanding how God works in our lives is not always easy to discern. What we think is God's action in our lives can sometimes be more the desires of our ego, with its agenda that makes it constantly on the lookout for circumstances and experiences that are fulfilling for us, self-serving in some way.

The ego is averse to discomfort. The ego came to be in our lives as the persona that was going to rescue us from emotional pain as a child. Now as adults, it continues to want to convince us that emotional discomfort and pain are bad, to be avoided at all costs even to the extent of asking God to collude with our ego and shape our lives and circumstances so that there is an absence of inner turmoil.

Of course, God does not want us to suffer unnecessarily. But given our human condition, and its fallen nature, there is an aspect of our suffering that is inevitable, particularly when it comes to emotional pain.   

Monday, 27 June 2016

If Jesus manifested his love and goodness by healing people during his earthly life, I can't not believe that he would not continue healing work for us today. We can open ourselves to His healing in terms of our emotionality. However, us surrendering and being open to that healing process is our necessary co-operation with his healing hand. We surrender to the healing process, different from trying to control it. Emotional healing is very much a letting go process. The initial letting go is consenting to God's healing action in our lives, even though the healing is not always a pretty picture. Invariably, it constitutes growing pains and surrendering particular ways of seeing ourselves, others and God.    

Can we weave this statement into our inner being:

"God regards me. God values me. God finds me acceptable even in my growing awareness of my brokenness, weakness, my inability to overcome my flaws and even my lack of faith. I can take off all my masks, let others know my truth, and even if they struggle to accept me in my truth, I can go towards the ultimate truth and that is that God loves me unconditionally." 

We want to have a renewed attitude to our emotionality. While we want to be free from the inhibiting dictates of our emotions, we first have to go towards them. It requires us working with them, not disowning or fearing them. We want our afflictive emotions to be healed by God, rather than us just "eliminating" them through repressive means

Getting in touch with our feelings can be difficult at first. We may feel overwhelmed at times. We may also feel confused about the array of feelings and conflicting emotions that we begin to experience. Sometimes we may even feel worse before we feel better. The important thing is to feel. 

Our attitude towards our emotions is pivotal in the context of preparing the way for God's deeper healing of us. A healthy attitude towards our emotions is marked by a truthfulness, and an acknowledgement of them. Can we accept their existence? Can we begin to name them? Can we make friends with our emotions rather than view them as this nuisance value in our lives?