Hello Beautiful People!
We all experience pain and distressing emotions in life
But some of us may be more emotionally sensitive than others.
Research has found that in a family of 4 probably 1 is an emotionally sensitive person.
So chances are good that you or someone in your family is emotionally sensitive.
Do any of the characteristics in the image above resonate for you? If so, you probably have higher needs for empathy and validation.
Sadly, people who are not emotionally sensitive tend to get frustrated with those who are.
But most emotionally sensitive people are born that way! And many have been through trauma or grew up with persistent invalidation of their feelings.
That’s why it’s especially helpful for emotionally sensitive people to receive empathy from God and others.
The most repeated description of God in the Bible is: “The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love” (Ps 145:8).
So if you’re an emotionally sensitive person (or if you’re experiencing some pain today), take some time to journal and ask God to help you receive His empathy for you.
You may also want to find a soul friend who will listen to you and offer empathy for your emotions (when we receive empathy from others it helps us agree with the empathy and grace God gives us).
Do you trust that God has always been good to you? Are you confident that his love for you is unfailing?
Here’s a litmus test:
Look back over your life and consider times you were mistreated or experienced hardship… Can you see God caring for you despite your circumstances? Can you say honestly and gratefully, “The Lord has been good to me!”?
Or try this test:
How do you react when you see or hear about a child starving in Africa or a drunk driver killing a teenager? Do you trust that God genuinely and immediately cares for the one in peril? The one who died? The loved ones who are grieving?
Why does a good and powerful God allow innocent people to suffer?
This issue causes problems for many of us and the people we care for. The Bible wrestles with this question too, especially in the psalms.
But here’s the good news: Jesus on the cross is God’s response to the pain and injustice that we suffer from.
His shed blood is our source of comfort, forgiveness, and daily sustenance. His life sacrificed is our opportunity for divine living in the spiritual Promise Land.
On the cross Jesus knew the immediate spiritual reality of God’s loving presence and purposes.
Right now Christ, our crucified and risen Lord and Savior, our eternal King, is actually in our midst with his angels! We may not connect with him, we may not even have a thought about him, but, nonetheless, always he is literally present in Spirit and is ready to care for us and help us — if only we will trust him and reach out for his hand of grace.
Yes, trust is a risk. But it’s also a blessing when the One you place your trust in is full of mercy and love.
If you train yourself to habitually rely on Jesus’ unseen hand you’ll be blessed! Then when a painful circumstance hits you’ll find yourself reaching to your loving Lord and discovering that he is enough for you❤️.
n the midst of your daily life with its challenges Jesus has an easy yoke for you to walk in.
This doesn’t mean that all your pain and problems will go away. Nor does it mean that you won’t have to do any hard work.
After all, Jesus’ easy yoke is still a yoke. And whether we like it or not, yokes are binding and they’re for working hard!
So stepping into Jesus' easy yoke doesn’t mean you won’t have to do any hard work or face any difficult circumstances. But it does mean you’ll discover an easy way to do hard things!
And as we go about our daily life (including the hard and painful parts) hand-in-hand with Jesus, we can learn to live “freely and lightly” with him and his Father in their “rhythms of grace” (Matt. 11:25-30).
Of course there will still be challenges and pains to overcome, but in the easy yoke we learn to do so with grace and peace.
This my friends is the best and happiest life!
A distinguishing mark of Jesus' ministry is inclusivity. He doesn’t leave out anyone!
Have you ever noticed this?
A few years ago I studied the Gospels, paying careful attention to ways Jesus was inclusive. Here are some of the things I discovered:
👉 Jesus kept his message and methods simple, yet profound, so ordinary people could understand. For instance he distilled hundreds of laws into one sentence! (Matt. 22:38-39).
👉 Jesus selected and trained not only Type A’s, but also Type B’s who were laid back, gentle, soft-spoken, and compassionate, like Andrew (John 1:40-42, 6:8, 12:20-22). More than half of the twelve were so much in the background that they are barely mentioned in the Gospels. Only three of the twelve were “pillars” (Gal. 2:9).
👉 Jesus trained women like Mary Magdalene, Joanna (wife of Herod’s manager), Mary the Mother of James, and Susana to be disciple-leaders. They traveled with him and provided him with hospitality, financial support, and encouragement (Luke 8:2-3, 24:1-7). There were many other women in his inner circle of leaders in training like Mary and Martha of Bethany (Luke 10:38-42, John 11 and 12:1-8), Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-31), and his own mother Mary (John 2:3-5; 19:26-27).
👉 Jesus received many foreigners and minorities into his group of disciple-leaders, like the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Samaritan leper (Luke 17:11-19), Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), Roman centurion (Matt. 8:5-13), Gadarene demoniac (Mark 5:1-20), Greek woman (Mark 7:24-30), and Simon from Africa (Mark 15:21). And here’s the best part: Jesus’ inclusivity extends to YOU too!
You too can live your life with Jesus under God’s loving rule in the kingdom of the heavens. And you too can invite others to join in.
No matter who you are, the risen Christ is here now in Spirit to embrace each you in Abba’s love, empower us with his Spirit, and guide you into real, abundant, eternal living today❤️.
It’s easy to miss the blessings in the moments of our daily lives. Often we’re trying to do too much, rushing through the day, worried, distracted, and absorbing conflict.
In fact, a research study found that 77% of us are regularly over-stressed and suffering physically as a result. Another study found that 31% of us experience an anxiety disorder at some point in our lives.
If you’re in a hurry or too busy, you lose margin.
Work, events, errands, and expectations from people get stacked on top of each other until you’re running breathlessly from one thing to the next.
As Dallas Willard famously taught, “You have to ruthlessly eliminate hurry” to grow spiritually and grow in your experience of God’s joy.
Pausing to be prayerful slows you down. It helps you learn to be emotionally present to the God who is always available to love you and guide you.
By taking a holy pause to breathe, meditate, or pray, you can unclutter the nooks and crannies of your daily life. Then you can fill this space with an appreciation of God’s presence and a readiness to join with what the Spirit of Jesus is doing.
Where can you make space to pause and be emotionally present to God this week?
Here are some ideas to get you started:
👉 Arriving a little early to meetings and events to pray
👉 Walking outside slowly to appreciate the beauty of nature
👉 Saying thank you when someone blesses you
👉 Turning driving into a sanctuary for God
👉 Immediately praying whenever you hear someone has a need (Matt. 11:25)
👉 Praying while you’re waiting in line or at a traffic light
👉 Meditating on a Bible verse while you brush your teeth
👉 Singing a praise song to God in the shower
What a blessing and honor it is when God gives us spiritual gifts and the opportunities to use them to minister to others and help them grow in Christ!
Serving others with the talents God has given us fosters joy and healthy identity. For this reason, we like to call spiritual gifts "joy gifts.” (We talk about this in our book, “Journey of the Soul.”)
Your spiritual gifts are needed by others in the body of Christ, even as you need their gifts, so that everyone can share in God’s work (Eph. 4:12).
Knowing the gifts God has given you — and the ones he hasn’t given you — is essential to your ministry.
It’s also important to realize that your spiritual gifts are only helpful to others when they are an expression of love for the people you’re serving.
In other words, operating in any of the gifts of the Spirit is secondary to the fruit of the Spirit maturing in your character (Galatians 5:22-23).
The key is humility: the gifts God gives us are to be used in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ and with the guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
To help you identify which gifts God has given you, we’ve put some fresh and practical wording to the ministry gifts listed in Romans 12:3–8 and Ephesians 4:11–13 in the images above.
As you consider these joy gifts ask God to help you discern how he has equipped you to serve others in Jesus’ name.
Which of the joy gifts in the images above do you have?
What are the top four gifts God has imparted to you for blessing others?
Also, it may be helpful for you to ask someone who knows you well to assess your spiritual gifts based on how they experience you.
We hope this helps you to hear or confirm God’s call on your life.
Tragically, in the public space of the Western world knowledge of spiritual things is not considered real anymore.
Spirituality, morals, and religion are viewed as “your truth” but maybe not “my truth.”
The things of God are considered subjective to the person like feelings, not real like our physical bodies and the material world.
So we trust science and say faith is a leap in the dark.
In contrast, the Bible teaches, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1, KJV).
Notice how faith is not described as a subjective emotional state — it’s described as a substance and evidence because it’s tied to knowing God’s revelation.
Faith is based on knowledge. It’s not blind or impulsive. It’s trusting in the real presence of God (Heb. 11:3, 6).
Faith includes intelligent thinking and believing what is true. It also includes having experiences and emotions, especially in the context of relationships.
To know Jesus is to be growing in an interactive, intimate relationship with him. It’s to know the reality of God’s presence and action in your life today. It’s the greatest blessing of life!
Knowledge of God revealed to us through Jesus Christ is the greatest blessing — that’s what gives us abundant life now and forever (John 10:10).
Not all joy is genuine and a gift from the Lord.
There is a difference between enjoying an activity in a relational way and appreciating it as God’s blessing, versus using pleasure to “veg out” or escape reality.
Our culture often settles for the latter.
We get “high” on adrenaline, success, media stimulation, pleasing people, being in a hurry, entertainment, buying stuff, etc.
These things may bring excitement but they are not a replacement for joy.
And while behaviors like watching TV, drinking coffee, etc. are not sinful, they may be pseudo joy diversions from God’s here-and-now kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17).
Joy comes with the presence of God’s Spirit.
True and enduring joy is part of the fruit of the Spirit (it’s singular because the qualities go together).
Loving relational connections with God and people naturally bring joy and are followed by peace, along with patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).
We often think of joy and peace as emotional states, but as Dallas Willard explains, “Love, joy, and peace are not mere feelings but conditions of the whole person that are accompanied by characteristic positive feelings.”
The fruit of the Spirit is not a bunch of feelings we can manufacture—it’s the virtue of those who abide in the Christ-vine.
Love, joy, and peace grow in us and out of us to bless others when we live in the spiritual reality of God’s great garden of grace.
This is why Paul while in prison and being mistreated can genuinely say, “Rejoice in the Lord! Again I say rejoice… the Lord is near” (Phil. 4:4, 6).
He’s appreciating that the Spirit of Jesus is with him, delighting in him, loving him, and strengthening him. He’s emotionally honest by asking God for what he needs and he’s thankful for God’s provisions (Phil. 4:6).
We too can become the kind of people who are so joyful that it exudes from us even in unhappy circumstances.
Practicing disciplines of rejoicing (like those listed in the image above) can re-shape our brains to assist our emotional-relational circuitry to flow in faith, hope, love, joy, and peace❤️.
The typical way of dealing with emotions is to work at changing our thinking, but for most people it’s not sufficient.
It actually becomes part of the problem when to change our thinking we repress our unwanted emotions.
Of course, good thinking is essential to life and it’s a problem if we so empower our feelings and desires that we just do as we please.
But dismissing and disrespecting emotions is a widespread problem and it’s a main reason for unwise thinking and stalled spiritual growth.
The cure for over-weighting thinking or feeling is to learn to keep them together.
We like to refer to our inner state as “feeling-thoughts” because they’re a two-way street, even in our brain.
We put feelings first because little children have emotions and desires more than they have thoughts and logic. Developmentally, emotions are deeper and more primary than thoughts. They’re visceral, intestinal, and bioenergetic.
The primary way to keep our feeling and thinking in balance is to verbalize our thoughts and emotions in “love one another” relationships where we can receive active listening, emotional validation, and spiritual hospitality.
We need to talk to a soul friend, spiritual director, mentor, or counselor who will dive into the murky depths of our emotions with us, providing empathy.
What’s down there?
What are the damaged emotions that need compassion? (e.g., anxiety, fear, depression, shame, and anger.)
Over time, participating in empathic relationships works to heal painful memories, depression, anxiety, anger problems, compulsive behavior, and other psychological wounds and deficits.
This is what the Psalmist models for us with the Lord and authentic community (e.g., Psalm 55).
In his humanity, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had limitations. Sometimes we forget this.
It can be easy to assume that because Jesus is fully God he was limitless. And while that’s true, in his humanity, he also had limitations.
Most people are surprised when I show them examples from the Bible of Jesus’ limitations, boundaries, and personal soul care. (It’s no wonder we overdo, get worn out, and even burnout!)
This understanding was surprising for me too. It’s something I wasn’t taught in church. But I looked prayerfully at the life of Jesus in the Gospels and discovered that Jesus did in fact live within his limits!
👉 He lived in a human body that needed nourishment and rest, he could only be in one place at at time, he only had 24-hours in a day. (Unlike ambitious, overworking leaders, Jesus didn’t try to accomplish 26 hours of activity in a 24 hour day!)
👉 He had personal needs that he put priority on—sometimes even over the needs of other people—and he did so without feeling guilty.
👉 He lived in a rhythm of life that not only kept him free from burn out, it kept him full of God and therefore ready and able to be compassionate and generous in his his response to people, their needs, interruptions, and crisis situations.
👉 He did not live on the defense, overextending himself and getting more and more tired and then finally taking a break. Instead, he lived on the offensive. He was proactive in that he consistently invested in his intimacy with Abba and got the rest he needed and so he stayed fresh, energetic, and focused.
These understandings about Jesus’ way of life can help us to trust that it is right (healthy and holy) for us to learn better how to say no to people, speak the truth in love, and live within our personal limitations.
So friend, if you’ve been struggling to accept your limits and set boundaries, remember that you have permission to say no. There are healthy limits to how much you can give to others. Step into Jesus easy yoke and you too can live and work in a relaxed way!
What’s the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning?
Several years ago my spiritual director asked me this question.
I confessed that my first thoughts were usually anxious thoughts.
As soon as I woke up, I was pulled in a million different directions. Life was busy, the world was noisy, and I was anxious. I thought about everything I felt pressured to get done that day. I bolted out of bed and got to work, forgetting to give attention to God — even if the work I was doing was “for God.”
Do you relate?
Maybe when you wake up you spend time stressing about what to wear, what to eat, and all the things you have to do.
Or maybe you spend the first moments of your morning feeling grumpy and groggy, wishing you had gotten more sleep or feeling irritated that your kids woke you up in the middle of the night.
Or maybe you immediately reach for your phone and begin scrolling through Instagram, checking the news headlines, making a “To-Do List”, and sorting through your emails.
These are all anxious ways to start the day!
When we begin our day worrying about all the things that we need to do and rushing to get going on them, we’re relying on ourselves instead of God.
And when we carry on without God, straining and stressing our way through life, we’re sure to get anxious, angry, slide into compulsive behavior, or get depressed.
But if we rely on God with us and within us, as we go about our day we’ll have a sense of ease and probably a sense of humor too!
That’s why it’s important that we spend the first moments of our morning lingering in bed to set our thoughts on God.
It only takes a few moments, but it can radically change how you live your day-to-day life.
It’s like a little Sabbath — a time to rest in God, enjoy Him and love Him. You’re disciplining your mind and body to follow the Spirit of Christ, step-by-step all day long, every day.
Practically, here are some things you can try this week when you first wake up:
👉 Give thanks and praise to God
👉 Meditate on Scripture
👉 Pray over the day ahead
👉 Submit your “To Do List” to God
👉 Pray a Breath Prayer
What do you do when you’re hurting?
Do you distract yourself from the pain and pretend it’s not there?
Do you hide the pain from others and put on a happy face for them?
Do you try to speed up the healing process by being self-critical?
Do you try hard in your own strength to “get better”?
Do you compare yourself to others and feel bad about yourself?
These are all common ways we deal with our hurts and challenging situations.
If we’re honest, we probably want a quick-fix or one-size-fits-all solution to magically make things better.
But in reality, healing takes time.
We can’t heal or grow by ignoring our pain. Nor can we speed up the process by pressuring ourselves to “get better.”
The way past our pain is to go through it.
As the prophet Jeremiah pointed out, “God can’t heal what you don’t feel” (Jeremiah 6:14, paraphrase).
We need to enter into the messy, vulnerable, and broken areas and open them up to receive God’s comfort, love, grace, and mercy. (Often we experience this through people who minister God’s empathy and presence to us in safe and loving relationships.)
As we rely on Christ our Savior to help us accept, process, and move forward from our hurt we’ll experience new vitality, peace, creativity, and capacity to love God and others.
So friends, if you or someone you love is hurting, remember that it’s okay to be where you are. Be gentle with yourself (and others).
Healing and growth don’t happen at the same pace and in the same ways for everyone — so be patient and take things one-at-a-time.
Let go of the expectation that you can do this on your own.
Give yourself the space you need to process and heal.
Talk to someone who can listen with empathy and offer support.
And most importantly, invite Jesus to be with you in this ❤️
When people ask us, “How can I improve my relationships?” We always answer, “Look to God to help you improve yourself.”
The crucial thing for your relationships is that you let go of expecting others to change and start by working on yourself.
All of us have things that we can improve on in order to be a better spouse, friend, parent, sibling, co-worker etc.
Developing better relationships begins with becoming a better friend yourself!
To help you do that, we’ve made a list of some things that we have found to be important steps for engaging in a healthy relationship.
This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, but hopefully it’s a good start to help you get a vision for what you can do to improve your relationships (regardless of whether or not the other person participates in working with you on your relationship).
As you read these traits we invite you to take inventory of yourself. Resist the temptation to evaluate the other person! Instead focus on what you need to work on.
You may want to start by picking one godly characteristic to develop today, relying on God to graciously help you❤️.
To become like Jesus we need to befriend his emotions.
If we admire and bond with Jesus the Feeler then it will help us put more value on the emotions that we and other people have.
We can do this through meditating on the Gospels and participating in love-one-another relationships in the body of Christ.
Connecting with Jesus’ emotions helps us to feel and convey his presence in our conversing, praying, playing, preaching, teaching, and working.
It will help us to clothe ourselves with the compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience of Christ (Col 3:12).
In the Bible, Jesus demonstrates the full range of human emotions and expresses them in perfect love.
If you read through the gospels you’ll see examples of Jesus experiencing emotions like anxiety, anger, shame, sadness, pain, surprise, hope, faith, love, joy, and peace. Each offers a mirror to help us to verbalize our own emotions and receive Jesus’ empathy ❤️
Our feelings can be pleasant or unpleasant, healthy or unhealthy, but they are not sinful in themselves, unless we indulge them (e.g, nursing a grudge or losing our temper at someone).
It’s always helpful to be aware of and understand our feelings – even if they’re inclining us in a sinful direction – and not to repress them or deny their existence, but to admit or confess that we have them, like the Psalmist does.
Emotions are natural, healthy, and they can even be a source of wisdom!
And if you learn to feel your emotions it’ll soften your heart for the grace of a deeper experience of Jesus’ friendship, the Father’s love, and the Spirit’s presence and power 🙌
Receiving the gift of someone’s caring presence and empathy is oxygen for your soul.
Sadly, wise empathy and gentle strength are in short supply today. Too often, those in pain or shame cannot find the soul care they need.
You may have found this on your own journey.
Instead of empathy, well-meaning helpers offer words of reassurance or platitudes from Scripture. But in the end it invalidates your emotions or needs.
This is the subtle, damaging experience of toxic positivity.
Not only does it fail to meet your soul-deep need—this toxicity also keeps you from honestly processing your emotions, which hinders your growth in Christ.
A cure for toxic positivity is to practice replacing these unhealthy statements (to ourselves or others) with those that express healthy faith and empathy.
In the images above we’ve shared some examples. For each one, the toxic positivity statement is given first, then the statement is reframed with honest reflection and grace-filled empathy.
In order to get to a place of healthy positivity, we need to experience the love, understanding, patience, and validation that empathy gives.
As someone puts energy and soft-hearted caring into trying to understand what you’re experiencing, you’ll feel cared for, and it will help you navigate your emotions in a healthy way.
And you can offer this same gift to others!