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Learning to Manage Our Emotions · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning everybody.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I had a little bit of a uh delay there.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I um actually had a whatever problem with my um uh browser.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: But uh glad to be with you this morning.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep going in the vein we've been in lately, which is um we've been talking about three epidemics that are uh I would say raging through the church, through our lives, through our culture.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess if I'm honest, they're emotional epidemics.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're epidemics that largely show themselves, their effect, in uh in the area of our emotions.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: So last week we talked about the three epidemics are heart disease.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 13, 12 says, hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that can be from childhood, that can be current, but imagine a two-year-old reaching up for their father.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Dad's coming in from a long day at work, two-year-old's running around, excited to see his dad, reaches up to be held and loved, and embraced by dad, and dad's distracted and kind of brushes him aside, and um goes and sits in a chair and flips the you know, the channel.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um the child does that enough times, in a sense, what you could say is hope deferred.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, hope is the anticipation of an expected good.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the child reaches up, like, oh, I'm gonna be, dad's gonna love on me, and he he's pushed aside.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: We talk a lot about about uh trauma, neglect, and things of that sort, and the things that affect our soul, little things, big things.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing the the absence of what's wanted or needed in a moment is just as destructive as the presence of abuse.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, not getting what you need can be as abusive as getting what you don't need, if that makes sense.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, hope deferred.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: What eventually happens is the child doesn't stop wanting to be loved, the child stops anticipating, hoping that he'll be loved.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it does something inside of them, it changes something inside of all of us when we no longer have a expectation of good, an anticipation of an expected good.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be little things, big things.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: It can be, you know, mommy, look what I made you, and you know, maybe mommy's got a migraine or something, and she and she just kind of doesn't get it.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So she doesn't respond well, or maybe mom's got her own unfinished business with her mom and is in a spiral of self-criticism and whatever, and doesn't communicate affirmation and encouragement.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what eventually happens is I stop, I stop bringing things, and I start just kind of feeling not so great about myself.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The second epidemic is what I call renegade emotions.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about in the old west, you know you had renegades, and forgive me, I don't mean to be multiculturally insensitive, but renegade means to be kind of running loose, unrestrained, unmanaged.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So renegade emotions are emotions that are just kind of they just they just run wherever they want.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe we live in a cultural moment right now where we feel like we're entitled to whatever we feel, and if I feel it, it's true, and I should be allowed to just express it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let it let it just kind of flow over everybody in my vicinity.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um obviously that that doesn't work out well for everybody involved.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So renegade emotions again, not corralling, managing, not I don't like the word controlling, but managing our emotions doesn't mean we're always supposed to have good ones.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean the bad ones are a gift from God just as much as the good ones are, and they just serve a different purpose.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Emotions are built based on the word emote, and emote means to move.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So emotions are given to us by God to move us, move us toward things we want more of, away from things we want less of.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, if I, you know, if I'm God and I want you to, there's certain things I want you to want more of, then we have emotions attached to that.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, uh this isn't a good example, good in the sense of morally, you might say, but um chocolate.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Chocolate tastes awesome.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So when we eat chocolate, we get this little dopamine and we get we get this rush, this buzz, this this uh high, if you will, and um we get a payoff.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So guess what?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Motions are given to us to want more of and be moved toward what we want more of.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So chocolate creates this chemical reaction in our brain and it makes us want more of it.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, there's other things that are built into us that make us want more of things, less of things, and our emotions, our feelings are what typically trigger those responses.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So renegate emotions are emotions that are very possibly connected incorrectly to things that we want too much, or we uh we want the wrong thing.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So hope defer makes the heart sick, renegate emotions.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then the third epidemic, in my opinion, would be what I call an epidemic of victimization.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh please don't think I don't think there's such a thing as a victim.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're all victims at some time or another, and obviously, some horrifically.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: But here's my point victimhood, in other words, being a victim, is situational, it's not your identity.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: In a situation, someone is acting in a way that's hurtful, someone is is exerting an in uh an influence or power over you physically, emotionally, uh, socially, culturally, whatever.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, in that moment or situation, you're a victim, but you can't take the identity of victimization into every area of your life, or what happens is in essence, you become the perpetrator of your victimization.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, if you carry that kind of a mentality, and here's the mentality of a victim, the mindset of a victim.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why does he keep doing that to me?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the thing.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm around someone that hurts me, let's say, you know, we we're we're working on something, and uh they maybe we're we're we're writing a book together, and uh we're we're three chapters in, and man, it's oh my gosh, it's good, man.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna this is gonna sell like crazy.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: This has never happened, by the way.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but uh next thing you know, I uh I noticed the person's not all that involved, and I'm like getting weird signals, and um they've uh gone and found a publisher and made a contract on the book as if it was theirs.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the deal that hurts, man.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're a victim.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: You've been you've been mistreated and betrayed by a person that you thought you could trust.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in that moment, yes, you're a victim.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if you agree to write another book with that person, you're not a victim anymore.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're a participant in your own violation.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just trying to make you think about stuff.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm around someone who emotionally mistreats me, you ever heard the statement, you know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm around someone that is consistently, emotionally or otherwise, uh damaging to me, um, I'm talking, even if it's your spouse, oh well, you know, marriage is blah, blah, blah.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the deal, guys.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there are choices power.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: You always have choices.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: They aren't always good choices, but you always have choices.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So someone's mistreating me.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's things I can do.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I can I can go to counseling and get healthier myself.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can ask them to go to counseling.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell them that certain things are going to change if they don't go to counseling.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in other words, there's always something, virtually always.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if somebody's got a gun to your ribs taking your purse, you might not have many choices other than to give them your purse.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't carry a purse, by the way.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: But um in most cases, 98% of the cases out there, you have some choice.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And again, they may not be a good choice, but it's a choice, and a choice is power.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to revisit that a little bit today, clarify it a little bit today, and try to draw us into the awareness that um these epidemics are out there, they're everywhere.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hope deferred, renegade emotions, and a victim mindset.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: You and I, remember responsibility, authority, and power.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: At the heart of this whole thing is I've got to say, you know what, God, my emotions, and and probably eventually we'll talk about this.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: My emotions are inside my sphere of influence, my circle of influence.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that mean?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: That means I'm responsible for managing them well.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what's so cool, in my opinion, is I've observed humanity for a lot of years now.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what follows the embracing of responsibility is the authority and power to carry out that responsibility.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't embrace responsibility, authority and power are exercised in very unhealthy ways by you and by others against you.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you might say it this way: the antidote to victimization is stewardship.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And stewardship begins with acknowledging and owning, embracing uh your responsibilities, and then learning to exercise and walk in the authority and power to carry out those responsibilities.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what we're all about.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So uh thanks for hanging with me this morning.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Look forward to talking to you again later, ma'am.