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Emotional Health = Our ability to be self-aware and love well.

Spiritual Maturity = Being transformed into a disciple who effortlessly does what Jesus would do in his or her place.

Peter Scazzero
It’s impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.

Unless what lies beneath the surface of our lives is exposed and transformed by the love of Jesus Christ, we remain emotional infants.

Job 1:1
Job was a man who lived in Uz. He was honest inside and out, a man of his word, who was totally devoted to God and hated evil with a passion.

Gerald Sittser
The quickest way to reach the sun and the light of day is not run west chasing after it, but to head east into the darkness until you finally reach the sunrise.

Common Defense Mechanisms Used To Protect Us From Pain:

1. Denial
2. Minimizing
3. Blaming Others
4. Blaming Yourself
5. Rationalizing
6. Intellectualizing
7. Distracting
8. Becoming Hostile

Maturing in Christ requires that we lower our defenses in favor of taking a good, hard look at what is true.

Matthew 26:36-41
Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray…

Matthew 26:45-46
But look—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”

Matthew 26:50
Jesus said, “My friend, go ahead and do what you have come for.”

What if we embraced grief and loss like Jesus?

Grief & Loss, do what you have come for. Make me more like Jesus.
Produce endurance in me. Build character in me. Produce hope in me. Go ahead. Do what you came for. Set God’s resurrecting power in motion and solidify the transforming love of God being poured into my heart through the Holy Spirit. (Romans 5)

Psalm 30
I will exalt you, Lord, for you rescued me. You refused to let my enemies triumph over me. O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you restored my health. You brought me up from the grave, O Lord. You kept me from falling into the pit of death. Sing to the Lord, all you godly ones! Praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning. When I was prosperous, I said, “Nothing can stop me now!” Your favor, O Lord, made me as secure as a mountain. Then you turned away from me, and I was shattered. I cried out to you, O Lord. I begged the Lord for mercy, saying, “What will you gain if I die, if I sink into the grave? Can my dust praise you? Can it tell of your faithfulness? Hear me, Lord, and have mercy on me. Help me, O Lord.” You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,
that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!

Psalm 30:5
Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.

Psalm 30:11
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

May endure means ‘may come to lodge’

Sorrow is Joy Disguised

Maclaren
Sorrow is joy disguised. If it is to be accepted, if the will submit, if the heart let itself be untwined, that its tendrils may be coiled closer round the heart of God, then the transformation is sure to come, and joy will dawn on those who have done rightly by their sorrows.

Maclaren
It will not be a joy like what the world calls joy- loud-voiced, boisterous, ringing with idiot laughter; but it will be pure, and deep, and sacred and permanent.

Willard
“At the literally mundane level Jesus knew how to transform the molecular structure of water to make it wine, that knowledge also allowed him to take a few pieces of bread and some little fish and feed thousands of people. He could create matter from the energy that he knew how to access from the heavens right where he was. He knew how to transform the tissues of the human body from sickness to health and from death to life. He knew how to suspend gravity, interrupt weather patterns, eliminate unfruitful trees without saw or ax he only needed a word…Saying Jesus is Lord can mean little in practice for anyone who has to hesitate in saying Jesus is smart…he is not just nice, he is brilliant, he is the smartest man who has ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of human history while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future role in it. He always has the best information on everything and certainly on the things that matter most in the human life.”

Hebrews 12:2
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

He can’t transform what you trivialize.

He can’t heal what you hide.

He can’t dethrone what you deny.

He can’t redeem what you rationalize.

He can’t attend to what you avoid.

He can’t walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death if you keep running to catch the sun.

Henri Nouwen
We tend to stay away from mourning and dancing. Too afraid to cry, too shy to dance… we become narrow-minded complainers avoiding pain and also true human joy… while we live in a world subject to the evil one, we belong to God. Let us mourn, and let us dance.