INSIDE OUT
Becoming emotionally healthy in an
unhealthy world. Psalms 42
3 QUESTIONS ABOUT
EMOTIONAL HEALTH
What is the truth
about emotions?
How can we process them
in a healthy way?
3 QUESTIONS ABOUT
EMOTIONAL HEALTH
How can we be empowered by them
to live out God’s will for our lives
and carry out His Kingdom work?
MYTHS ABOUT EMOTIONS
CAN'T CONTROL THEM
MUST REPRESS THEM
CAN'T TRUST THEM
THERE IS NO PLACE FOR THEM
IN THE LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN
The truth about emotions
They are gifts from God.
We can learn much from them about ourselves.
We must learn to control and deal with them in
a healthy way without suppressing them.
The truth about emotions
There are many examples of biblical heroes
who expressed a wide range of emotions in
appropriate ways, including God and Jesus.
God designed people to have a full range
of emotions and learn how to express and
experience them to the fullest.
..."Emotional Health and Spiritual Maturity
are inseparable. You cannot be spiritually
mature and emotionally immature".
Peter Scazzero, “The emotionally healthy church”
How do we process
emotions in a healthy way?
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my
soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for
God, for the living God. When can I go and meet
with God? Psalms 42:1-2
CRY OUT TO GOD
How do we process
emotions in a healthy way?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while people say to me all day long, “Where is
your God?” Psalms 42:3
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
Psalms 42:7
SURFING STORY
How?
I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the
enemy?” Psalms 42:9
My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
Psalms 42:10
How?
BE HONEST ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS
How?
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed
within me? Psalms 42:5a
GO BENEATH THE SURFACE OF YOUR FEELINGS
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my
Savior and my God. Psalms 42:5b (NIV)
SPEAK THE TRUTH TO YOURSELF
How do we process emotions
in a healthy way?
My soul is downcast within me; therefore
I will remember you from the land of the
Jordan, the heights of Hermon
— from Mount Mizar. Psalms 42:6
How do we process emotions
in a healthy way?
By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is
with me—a prayer to the God of my life. Psalms 42:8
RECALL PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES
AND TRUTH ABOUT GOD
Review
• Cry out to God
• Be honest about our feelings
• Go beneath the surface of your feelings
• Speak the truth to yourself
• Recall previous experiences and truth about God
Question?
How can we be empowered by our emotions
to live out God’s will for our lives?
We must choose between
MEDITATION and MEDICATION
MEDICATION
•Avoid pain
•Medicate pain
•Don’t learn
•Don’t grow
•Stay immature emotionally and spiritually
MEDITATION
•Listen to your pain
•Meditate on what God is saying through
and about your pain
•Learn from it
•Grow from it
•Become mature spiritually and emotionally
What does a community of
spiritually and emotionally
healthy believers look like?
•Believers from the first century
•Believers from Charleston
•Believers at lifeChurch and throughout
the Detroit metro area