“Life is a long lesson in humility.”
JOURNAL
The human brain, our emotions, and our thoughts are truly amazing. But understanding them and honestly seeking what they are trying to tell us is hard work. I am beginning to realize that much of my life I have feared certain emotions, especially disappointment, anger, sadness, and fear. Instead of confronting them, I often found ways to avoid them, suppress them, explain them away, or simply keep moving. I told myself I was being strong, but perhaps sometimes I was actually being lazy.
M. Scott Peck describes laziness as one of the great obstacles to spiritual growth. I don't think he means simply sitting around doing nothing. Laziness can be the unwillingness to do the difficult work that growth requires. In that sense, refusing to deal honestly with my emotions may be a form of laziness. It is easier to bury disappointment than ask why it hurts so much. It is easier to suppress anger than confront what is underneath it. It is easier to distract myself from fear than admit what I am afraid of. And behind that avoidance is often another fear: What will happen if I actually confront this?
That is where humility enters. “Life is a long lesson in humility” because real growth continually requires me to admit that something inside me needs attention. Proverbs says that the person who conceals does not prosper, while the one who confesses and renounces finds mercy. Paul distinguishes between a sorrow that produces transformation and a sorrow that produces death. Neither passage tells me to avoid what hurts. They tell me to bring it into the light.
I can see now how avoiding emotions affected both my relationship with God and my relationships with people. Relationships inevitably involve disappointment because people are imperfect. They will misunderstand me, fail me, frustrate me, and sometimes hurt me, just as I will do the same to them. If I refuse to acknowledge the disappointment or anger because I am afraid of what confronting it might require, the emotion doesn't disappear. It simply goes underground. Eventually it can emerge as resentment, irrational fear, withdrawal, defensiveness, or anger toward people who may have had nothing to do with the original wound.
Maybe courage is not refusing to feel these things. Maybe courage is being willing to feel them fully and then take them somewhere safe.
That safe place is God.
I can bring God the disappointment without pretending it doesn't hurt. I can bring Him the anger without being controlled by it. I can tell Him what I am afraid of without being ashamed that I am afraid. I can pray through it, write through it, cry through it, talk through it, and allow His Spirit and His Word to counsel me rather than allowing the emotion to silently counsel me from beneath the surface.
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” is not an invitation to deny anxiety. I cannot cast something upon God that I refuse to acknowledge I am carrying. Humility means opening my hands and admitting, This hurt me. This disappointed me. This made me angry. This scares me. God, help me understand why.
That is work. It may actually be some of the hardest work I ever do. But perhaps this is exactly what Peck means when he describes genuine spiritual growth as requiring discipline. Laziness says, Don't go there. It might hurt. Leave it buried. Fear says, You don't know what confronting this will cost. But God's Spirit gives me something different: the power to face what is true, the love to respond without bitterness, and the discipline to do the difficult inner work instead of running from it.
The goal is not to become less emotional. The goal is to become more honest. I don't have to fear what I find inside myself because I don't have to face it alone. I can bring all of it into the presence of God, trusting that what I surrender to Him can become an opportunity for healing, growth, humility, and ultimately love.
1 PETER 5:5-6
No comments:
Post a Comment