God's Justice and Compassion in the OT

The violence of God in the Old Testament is a continuing interest of mine begun but a few months ago (see sidebar on topic).... Recently another book has recently been published on this subject which I have thought to include in this study. To that is a contributing author whose OT outlook on the subject of God's judgments were published several years ago through Relevant Magazine providing the conservative, evangelical response to God's vengeance. I should like to use David Lamb's outlook as a reference point and then add to it (or retract from it) against the several views present in the book below as well as against our previous studies earlier presented here on this website.

 

Overall, it appears that God defends the weak and the oppressed against acts of injustice and ill-compassion. For those nations or people groups who do not repent of their ways God's patience runs out and He subsequently smites by plague, pestilence, and by the hand of men and angels. A comfort to any man, woman, or child, who daily lives under the horrid regimen of tyranny and unjust hardship however timely, or belated, God's judgment seems to come. To know that there is a God of the universe who is compassionate and watches over His creation gives to us comfort and hope against the thugs, bullies, and despots of this world. A God who will defend us and defeat our enemies after a period of patience and awaited repentance. If no repentance has been enjoined, and no mercy found from within a nation committed to injustice and oppression, than God's patience runs out and He measures back to that nation their crimes in full.

 

At least this is my surmise from what I have gathered through these past many months of exploring the themes of God's vengeance. However, this does not relieve us as followers of Jesus to ignore our own homeland and trade abroad... that within our own governance and lifestyles we must continually be aware of helping the poor, the homeless, the sick, the widow, the helpless and defenseless. To seek those less blessed than ourselves by sharing all that we are by works and by deed. To create social agencies committed to helping, providing, healing, and restoring as best we can those who require education, nutrition, dental/medical aide, recovery, shelter, legal, and financial services, to name just a few. In creating supportive community networks focused on extending benevolence, compassion, and advocacy for the unempowered, discriminated, overlooked, and misjudged.

As an example, in the city where I live there is an interest in creating a "farmers market" downtown where commuters and residents may come and purchase fresh foods. With this effort has arisen a tandem interest in "cleaning up" the city streets by removing the homeless from this same market area which they have called home for so many long years. Across our state another large city has been doing the same for years in their downtown area and have recently been called to account for their actions. However, rather than "sweep" the streets of the indigent and homeless, I might suggest the city double-down and renew its efforts in supporting area agencies working with the homeless to find more relevant solutions that may be more humanitarian and less discriminating.

 

As Christians we are commanded to extend God's mercy to all men - both at home and abroad. And though this small urban example seems "far from home" from the Old Testament's pages of genocidal warfare and divine judgment, it is but a reflective paradigm that is not unlike what God so long ago had encouraged Israel to observe towards her neighbors - towards both friend and foe alike. Who later, via His incarnation in the New Testament, we hear from again through Jesus, of His compassionate teachings and merciful ministries delicately balanced against His forewarnings of divine judgment and wrath. Biblical stories which in their narration continue the heart of the God who daily reaches out to our lives in love and justice, wisdom and mercy. An austere God to His enemies but a benevolent God to His obedient people.

 

R.E. Slater

May 2, 2013

 

 

 

Holy War in the Bible:

Christian Morality and an Old Testament Problem

 

Edited by Heath A. Thomas , Jeremy Evans and Paul Copan

 

This paperback edition available from Amazon and Christianbook.com.

 

The challenge of a seemingly genocidal God who commands ruthless warfare has bewildered Bible readers for generations. The theme of divine war is not limited to the Old Testament historical books, however. It is also prevalent in the prophets and wisdom literature as well. Still it doesn’t stop. The New Testament book of Revelation, too, is full of such imagery. Our questions multiply.

• Why does God apparently tell Joshua to wipe out whole cities, tribes or nations?
• Is this yet another example of dogmatic religious conviction breeding violence?
• Did these texts help inspire or justify the Crusades?
• What impact do they have on Christian morality and just war theories today?
• How does divine warfare fit with Christ’s call to "turn the other cheek"?
• Why does Paul employ warfare imagery in his letters?
• Do these texts warrant questioning the overall trustworthiness of the Bible?

These controversial yet theologically vital issues call for thorough interpretation, especially given a long history of misinterpretation and misappropriaton of these texts. This book does more, however. A range of expert contributors engage in a multidisciplinary approach that considers the issue from a variety of perspectives: biblical, ethical, philosophical and theological.

 

While the writers recognize that such a difficult and delicate topic cannot be resolved in a simplistic manner, the different threads of this book weave together a satisfying tapestry. Ultimately we find in the overarching biblical narrative a picture of divine redemption that shows the place of divine war in the salvific movement of God.

 

 

 

 

Reconciling the God of Love With the God of Genocide:

How could the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament be the same?

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/god-our-generation/reconciling-god-love-god-genocide#_=_

 

by David Lamb

Sept/Oct 2011

 

My wife, Shannon, and I were on a date recently, and we ended up chatting with our server. He finally turned to me and asked, “So, what do you do?”

 

I told him, “I teach the Bible, mainly the Old Testament.”

 

“The Old Testament—isn’t that where God smites people and destroys cities?” he asked. “Not exactly, but I get that question a lot because the God of the Old Testament has a bad reputation,” I said. Everyone loves the New Testament God. He’s the one who sends His son to die on a cross for humanity’s sin. But do Christians really love the God of the Old Testament? Perhaps no part of the Bible gives God a worse reputation than His command to utterly wipe out the Canaanite residents of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 20:16-18; Joshua 10:40; 11:10-15). How do we reconcile a loving God with a God who seems to command genocide?

 

It’s not just atheists or agnostics who ask these types of questions, but even committed Christians wonder what God was thinking when He commanded His people to wipe out another nation. (And if we aren’t wondering, we should be.) Adolf Hitler attempted to do something similar with the Jews during WWII with his “Final Solution” and he’s in the running for the Worst Person of All Time award. So ... is God Hitler-esque?

 

Often Christians are too quick to downplay biblical problems like these and make people who ask questions feel like they’re not taken seriously or even belittled, as if it were wrong, disrespectful or irreverent to ask about God’s behavior.

 

Personally, I think the Canaanite conquest raises not only a valid question but an important one. As someone who loves the Old Testament and the God it portrays, I find the Canaanite problem deeply troubling. While I may go to my grave still struggling over this issue, there are some good arguments that can help people understand why a loving God would command the destruction of the Canaanites.

 

Two Arguments That Don't Help

 

I’ll start with two arguments that are often used to explain the Canaanite conquest but don’t help since they don’t actually address the problem. One argument may be more attractive to liberals, the other to conservatives, but neither takes the biblical text very seriously.

 

The fictional argument.

 

The Canaanite conquest as described in Joshua is fiction. If God’s behavior in the Old Testament is not consistent with the behavior of Jesus in the New Testament, then one can discount or ignore the Old Testament account. Even if the Canaanite slaughter occurred, it wasn’t commanded by God.

 

While this argument is attractive since the problematic divine mandate for genocide conveniently disappears, it establishes a dangerous precedent that many Christians (myself included) won’t be comfortable with—specifically, throwing out parts of Scripture that don’t make sense to us. (Though many Christian leaders do essentially the same thing by never teaching on troublesome texts.) If we get rid of the Canaanite conquest, why not get rid of the stories of Noah’s flood, Uzzah’s smiting or Elisha’s bear-mauling? History is full of people who attempted to edit out the uncomfortable bits of Scripture (Marcion, Thomas Jefferson), but fortunately their abridged Bibles never succeeded, and this argument doesn’t either.

 

The whirlwind argument.

 

From the whirlwind, God speaks to Job with a barrage of questions (Job 38-41), putting Job in his place for questioning God’s behavior. Who are we to question God? We can never fully understand what God is doing in the world, and the Canaanite conquest is just another mystery we cannot comprehend.

 

I call this argument the “trump card,” because it tends to end the game. While it’s an attractive card to play, and a favorite of many Christians, it won’t convince a true skeptic, and may infuriate them. Of course we can never fully understand God’s behavior, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t even try.

 

My biggest problem with this argument is it goes against so much of what we find in Scripture. The Bible is full of people who ask questions about God’s behavior (Abraham, Moses, the psalmists). Surprisingly, at the end of the book of Job, God rebukes the three friends and affirms the speech of Job: “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (42:8, NIV). Apparently, God viewed Job’s questions and laments as speaking rightly, so we shouldn’t conclude that God’s speech from the whirlwind is meant to shut down this type of interaction.

 

Even Jesus on the cross questioned God’s behavior: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If Jesus can question God’s behavior, shouldn’t it be OK for us? People need to be encouraged to ask tough questions about the Bible, particularly where God does things we don’t understand, like commanding the destruction of the Canaanites.

 

Five Arguments That Do Help

 

And now for five helpful arguments that address the problem directly, explain the context accurately and take the text seriously.

 

The context argument.

 

In the context of the ancient Near East, it was not unusual for victorious nations to slaughter defeated foes, so the brutality of Canaanite conquest was not unusual. In their inscriptions, ancient rulers (Ashurnasirpal of Assyria and Mesha of Moab) even bragged about wiping out cities and killing women and children, so what seems wrong to us was normal back then. Don’t take modern presuppositions about what warfare should look like and import them into a very different ancient context.

 

While I normally find understanding the ancient context helpful in understanding a difficult passage, this argument so far doesn’t help much in understanding the conquest, since it sounds like what a teen would say to a parent: “All the other nations are committing genocide. Why can’t I(srael) do it, too?”

 

People need to be encouraged to ask tough questions about the Bible.

 

But it’s not what is similar between Israel’s conquest and that of their neighbors that is most relevant to this problem, but what is different. Unlike nations like Assyria and Moab who were expanding their borders to enrich their own kingdoms, Israel was simply trying to gain a homeland. They were refugees who had experienced hundreds of years of oppression in a foreign land; they needed a place to live and the Canaanites weren’t going to give it to them voluntarily. Since the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) had lived in Canaan previously, one could argue Israel had a legitimate right to be reestablished in the land of their ancestors. The context argument is an important one that needs to be used alongside the following four arguments.

 

The hyperbole argument.

 

The descriptions of the Canaanite slaughter are hyperbolic. The killing was probably limited as only a few texts speak of widespread destruction (Joshua 10-11), while more texts speak of numerous Canaanites still living in the land (Joshua 13:1, 13; 15:63; 17:12; Judges 1). To harmonize the texts that describe a complete slaughter with those that say many Canaanites remained in the land, one can conclude there is an element of exaggeration.

 

This argument not only takes the text seriously but also attempts to make sense of the biblical tension between a complete slaughter and a localized one. But even if the actual Canaanite slaughter wasn’t as bad as it appears in Joshua 10-11, the fact remains that God commanded it. And the fact the Israelites didn’t complete it was a problem.

 

However, even though God commanded it, the primary image used to describe the Canaanite conquest is not slaughter. While the texts that describe Israel’s violent obedience get our attention (Joshua 10:40; 11:12), the textual image used far more frequently for the conquest is “driving out” the people of the land (Exodus 23:28-31; 34:11; Numbers 32:21; 33:52-55; Deuteronomy 4:38; 7:1; 9:3-6; 11:23; 18:12; 33:27; Joshua 3:10; 14:12; 17:18; 23:5). God even tells the Israelites He’ll drive out the people of the land before they arrive, using hornets and angels (Exodus 23:28; 33:2); we can assume their numbers were reduced before the conquest battles began.

 

Although the hyperbole argument may not convince a skeptic, it’s a step in the right direction since it acknowledges other texts make a contribution to the complete picture of what happened with the Canaanite conquest, and it reminds us to not focus exclusively on the most problematic texts.

 

The punishment argument.

 

The Canaanites were being punished for wicked behavior, which included idolatry (Exodus 23:32-33; Deuteronomy 12:29- 31), child sacrifice and sorcery (Deuteronomy 18:9- 14) and unwarranted attacks on defenseless Israel (Exodus 17:8-13; Numbers 21:1, 21-26, 33-35). The Canaanites were guilty of many crimes, but it is hard not to conclude the severity of the judgment against them was due in no small part to a lack of hospitality and an abundance of hostility.

 

The strength of this familiar argument is that it receives a lot of support from Scripture. You might reasonably ask, “Isn’t it harsh and even ironic to violently wipe out an entire nation for being too violent?” Perhaps, but elsewhere in the Old Testament God punished evil nations with death and exile (Amos 1:5, 15; 5:5; Jeremiah 48:7). God even sent His own people, first Israel and then Judah, into exile for their evil behavior (2 Kings 17; 24-25).

 

While we may not be comfortable with the severity of the punishment, part of our problem with the conquest narratives comes from our discomfort with judgment more generally. But since punishment is found throughout Scripture, we need to continue to work to understand it and see how it fits in with God’s mission to bless the nations, which is directly related to the final two arguments explaining the Canaanite slaughter.

 

The slow-to-anger argument.

 

God was slow to anger with the Canaanites since He waited literally hundreds of years before punishing them. While establishing the covenant with him, God informs Abraham that his descendants will be slaves in a foreign land for 400 years and that judgment will come upon the idolatrous people who live in Canaan (Genesis 15:12-21).

 

What was God doing while He waited? This text doesn’t make it clear, but God is often described elsewhere as being “slow to anger.” God Himself says He has “no pleasure in the death of anyone” and He wants people to repent and live (Ezekiel 18:32). So during this extended period of waiting, besides creating a people He would call His own, He was giving the Canaanites a long time to repent, and God’s own people paid the price for God’s delay. Because God is slow to anger, His people were not only homeless but also slaves and victims of oppression for centuries. I find this argument shockingly compelling, since it speaks both of God’s willingness to allow His people to suffer for others, and His desire to be merciful to sinners, a trait we see even more clearly in the final argument. The remnant argument. From among the Canaanites, a righteous remnant was saved. Every person or nation who showed hospitality to Israel was delivered: Rahab and her entire family (Joshua 6:22, 25); the Gibeonites (Joshua 9); a man from Bethel (Judges 1:24-25); the Kenites (1 Samuel 15:6).

 

I find this argument the most helpful. In some ways it’s the story of Scripture—even though we all deserve death, God shows mercy. The fact these people are shown grace supports the slow- to-anger argument because it provides further evidence God wanted to give the Canaanites opportunities to repent. God didn’t hate the Canaanites, but He hated their crimes, and He showed mercy to Canaanites who welcomed foreigners. God repeatedly commanded His own people to practice hospitality toward foreigners.

 

In each of these situations there are extenuating circumstances that could make it difficult to discern God’s attitude toward the deliverance (e.g., Rahab was a prostitute, the Gibeonites used deception). God’s voice may be absent as an initiator of these rescues, but He never condemns these acts of mercy toward Canaanites, and the New Testament’s perspective on Rahab is highly positive. This Canaanite prostitute is praised for her faith and hospitality and is given a place of high honor at the very beginning of the New Testament in the genealogy of Jesus.

 

Three Words of Advice.

 

If you’re looking for an argument that “solves” the problem of the Canaanite conquest, keep looking. No article can provide that. But hopefully, this has illustrated why some arguments are helpful and others aren’t.

 

Three final words of advice. First, keep asking questions about the text. But as you do, keep going back to God’s word. The process will deepen your relationship with God. Second, discuss these problems with your friends. We all have a lot to learn from others, and we all desire the depth of friendship that comes from talking about things that matter. Third, remember the mercy shown to a Canaanite woman more than 1,000 years before God’s ultimate act of love—sending Rahab’s descendant, Jesus, to the cross for the sins of the whole world.

 

 

 

3 Lies Porn Tells You

 

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/whole-life/3-lies-porn-tells-you

 

By Justin and Trisha Davis

April 18, 2013

Justin and Trisha are bloggers, authors, speakers and founders of RefineUs Ministries. Sharing their story of pain, loss and redemption, RefineUs is igniting a movement to build healthy marriages and families. They are the co-authors of their first book, Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Just Isn’t Good Enough, published by Tyndale House Publishers.

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

Three years into our marriage, my wife, Trisha, woke up in the middle of the night and realized I wasn’t in bed. She walked out into the living room and as soon as she looked at the TV, I quickly changed the channel.

 

She began to question me about what I was watching, why I wasn’t in bed, and why I would immediately change the channel. Then came the repeated question: Do you struggle with lust and pornography? The more she asked the more intense the conversation became.

 

So I denied everything. I told her I was just channel surfing. I argued with her about what she saw. I convinced her that I didn’t struggle with porn or lust. She had nothing to worry about. I was lying.

 

For the amount of people who struggle with this, we don’t talk about it near enough.

 

I didn’t know it at the time, but that night was the first of many opportunities I had over the first 10 years of our marriage to be honest about my porn addiction. I was a pastor and pastors don’t struggle with lust or porn. At least, no other pastor I knew struggled with it, I felt all alone.

 

The truth was, I wasn’t alone. I had friends I could have talked to. I had accountability partners I lied to. I had other pastors I blew off when asked about sexual sins and struggles.

 

In my mind, my intentions were good—I was trying to protect my marriage. The reality is, porn was telling me lies and I was buying right into them.

 

For the amount of people who struggle with this, we don’t talk about it near enough. We don’t talk about it in our families. We don’t talk about it in our churches. We think avoiding it will make it go away. Statistically speaking, over 50 percent of the men reading this post have had exposure to pornography recently. And it’s not just a “man’s problem,” either. About 30 percent of porn users online are women. It isn’t going away.

 

Here are the three lies porn told me and will tell you as well.

 

1. That was the last time.

 

No matter how many times you’ve looked at pornography, that was your last time. Because you truly believe it is your last time buying the magazine, going to the web site, downloading that movie—you don’t need to confess it, because it was the last time. Until tomorrow or next week or next month. It is the last time—until the next time. If porn can convince you that “this time is the last time,” you’ll never tell anyone.

 

2. You can stop anytime you want.

 

You know what pornography has done to other marriages, to other friends, to other families, to other church leaders…but you aren’t really “addicted” to pornography. You can stop anytime you want. Besides it doesn’t have the same effect on you that it does on other people. It won’t hurt your life, your marriage, your kids, your church, your ministry like it has other people. You are in control of porn, it doesn’t control you.

 

Freedom costs something upfront, but not as much as bondage costs over time.

 

3. Confessing your struggle with cost you too much.

 

Porn wants you to live in secret. Porn causes us to weigh the cost of confessing against the cost of hiding and convinces us that hiding will be less painful. You think you are helping yourself and your marriage by hiding your porn addiction. Your wife—or husband—won’t understand. Your marriage won’t recover. Your credibility won’t be able to be rebuilt.

 

Something I’ve learned the hard way: Hiding sin never provides us with the power

to overcome it. The freedom you long for is found in confession. Freedom costs

something upfront, but not as much as bondage costs over time.

 

Believing these lies will never give you the power to overcome them. Trying to quit will not give you the power to quit. But freedom is possible.

 

Here is what I believe with all of my heart: If you struggle with pornography, God isn’t disappointed in you; He is fighting for you. He died and conquered sin and death so you can have victory in this area of your life.

 

Where do we begin? How can we overcome something that grips our heart and keeps us living in shame and guilt? The first place I suggest everyone that struggles with pornography start is with a Christian counselor. Both my wife and I needed someone with greater perspective and wisdom than we had to help us overcome this struggle in my life.

 

Beyond that, I want to share one principle with you that I believe has power to bring freedom, hope and healing to your heart. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

 

Healing comes through confession and prayer. I know that sounds very churchy, but take a look at this Scripture: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).

 

The type of confession that James is talking about isn’t a confession for forgiveness; it is confession for healing. There is a healing that comes to our heart as we confess our sins with one another.

 

Most of us have the “forgiveness” part of confession down. We know that in order to get forgiveness from God, we have to confess our sins. Maybe you grew up confessing to a priest, maybe it is something that you do in your quiet time with God, maybe it is something that you do after you’ve made a huge mistake. Most of us know that forgiveness from God comes through confession.

 

We don’t talk about the “healing” type of confession in the Church very often. In fact, we have built a religious system that tries to find healing through hiding our sins, not confessing them. The sins we do confess are “safe” sins: bitterness, jealousy, materialism, anger and selfishness.

 

I was the master at this. I appeared “authentic” for confessing socially acceptable sins while I lived as a prisoner to sins I wasn’t willing to confess. For years, I forfeited the healing that God longed to bring to my heart not because I didn’t confess my sins to Him; but because I refused to confess them to anyone else.

 

But here’s 3 truths porn will never tell you:

• Temptation loses its power when we confess.
• Sin loses its ability to keep us fractured when we confess.
• Addictions lose the control they have in our lives when we confess.

The secret sin you keep only has power as it remains a secret. The Light will always overcome darkness. The difficult decision we face is allow that Light into the darkest, most embarrassing parts of our heart. God can’t heal the parts of our heart we refuse to bring into the Light. But when we do, we can be healed.

 

When God Doesn't Answer Prayer

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/practical-faith/when-god-doesn%E2%80%99t-answer-prayer

 

By Dorothy Greco
February 18, 2013

Dorothy Littell Greco divides her time not-so-neatly between writing, making photographs, pastoring, and keeping three teenage sons adequately fed. She lives and works in the Boston area and is a reluctant Patriots/Celtics/Bruins/RedSox fan. You can check out more of her words and images at www.dorothygreco.com 

 

When God Doesn't Answer Prayer...

At least, how we want Him to answer it.

 

Our all-powerful, all-loving God encourages us to ask Him for what we want. But sometimes, after we’ve put it out there, He seems to turn and walk in the opposite direction. We are left with questions. Why did He want us to pray if He was just going to say no, anyway? We were praying “wrong” in the first place? What are we supposed to do now?

 

I have repeated this cycle multiple times. More than a decade ago, I began experiencing unrelenting fatigue, muscle soreness and waning strength. Countless tests and doctor visits later, I received the diagnosis of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. For the next five years, I politely asked God for healing, then demanded healing, then finally gave up hope for healing.

 

As a result, I have been accused of lacking faith by earnest friends and prayer ministers. I’ve confessed and repented of every sin I can think of, wept, protested and spent more than a few days crippled by despair.

 

We tend to have one of two responses when what we asked for is not given in a timely fashion: trying harder or angry blaming.

 

Apparently, I am not the only one who struggled because of unanswered prayer. Last week, I invited friends to fill in the blank on my Facebook wall: “Unanswered prayer ... ” I received more than 40 responses, including the following: is deeply disappointing, makes me feel unloved, feels like a betrayal, is confusing, can be overwhelming, or is business as usual.

 

Some of our bewilderment emerges because we actually believe that God is all powerful and that He not only wants us to come to him like little children, but also encourages us to ask Him for everything from babies, to spouses, to jobs, to housing to help losing weight. Hence—the disconnect when He doesn’t always give us what we want.

 

This paradox reminds me of our youngest son’s attitude at Christmas. He starts composing his gift list in September, and for the next four months, he will revise, add to and shamelessly share it. Yet when Christmas day rolls around, he is filled with dread—because experience has shown him that though we are good parents, we don’t always give him precisely what he requested. He has told us, “Why bother asking me if you aren’t going to buy me exactly what I want?”

 

Isn’t this how we feel about our heavenly Father? We tend to have one of two responses when what we asked for is not given in a timely fashion: trying harder or angry blaming.

 

My five years of spiritual activism post-diagnosis offer you a snapshot of trying harder. I succeeded only in wearing myself out and spiraling deeper into doubt. None of us can make ourselves worthy—that only comes as a gift from Jesus.

 

Angry blaming similarly leads us into a dead-end. In night four of an insomnia jag, I remember spewing at God, “Why don’t you help me get to sleep? The Bible tells me that you give sleep to those you love! Don’t you love me?” Powerlessness is its own form of suffering. When we’ve run out of other options, anger and blame give us the illusion of control. But it really is only an illusion. It didn’t help my faith and it certainly didn’t help me to sleep.

 

For us to avoid these and other unhelpful responses when our prayers aren’t answered the way we’d hoped, we need to zoom out and glimpse the larger story.

 

What if, rather than interpreting God’s “no” or “not yet” as punishment or indifference, we view it as an invitation to be transformed?

 

Every day, there is an epic battle being waged for our hearts. The enemy of our soul has an entire arsenal at his disposal but his go-to weapon is doubt. Adam and Eve didn’t disobey because they craved the apple, but because they fell for the serpent’s ruse that God was withholding good things from them. If you ever find yourself doubting God’s love or questioning His character, push back—hold to what you know to be true.

 

Expressing gratitude also helps to defuse our despair and suffering. Due to fibromyalgia, I can no longer book all-day photo shoots—but I can still see. I can no longer play basketball with my sons—but I can walk and I constantly thank God for these gifts. Turning our hearts to God in gratitude has the capacity to flip our disappointment upside down.

 

Finally, we must be willing to explore any attachment to entitlement that might contribute to our resentment of how God has answered our prayer. We live in a consumer society and have become accustomed to getting what we want, when we want it. Jesus does not promise to give us everything that we want but rather asks us to sacrifice everything—including our own desires for a specific outcome or result. This changes everything when it comes to how we pray.

 

What if, rather than interpreting God’s “no” or “not yet” as punishment or indifference, we view it as an invitation to be transformed? C.S. Lewis writes in The Problem of Pain, “We are a Divine work of art, something that God is making and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character.”

 

The possibility that waiting and suffering have the capacity to transform us offers us profound comfort while crushing our fear of God being fickle. Rather than needing God to answer my accusatory questions of “why,” I am free to ask, “How can I find You in the midst of this?” This inquiry provides us with the traction we need to move beyond our pain and into the transformation that God has for us.

 

 

 

Understanding Christianity's Jewishness

 

Christian Judaism

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/03/20/christian-judaism/

 

by Scot McKnight

Mar 20, 2012

Comments

 

E.P. Sanders famously said the problem with Judaism for contemporaries of Paul was that it was not Christian.

 

Sanders was a lightning rod, and at the same time, a lighthouse, for scholars in the late 1970s and 80s, and his legacy — usually called the “new perspective” (language used by Tom Wright and Jimmy Dunn) — has been that while there is a clear difference between “Judaism” and “Christianity,” that relationship in the 1st Century — and perhaps a lot longer — was not so much two kinds of religion but varieties within one religion, namely Judaism.

 

So the debate is often, Do we call “it” Christian Judaism (a Christian form of Judaism) or Jewish Christianity?

 

[My own opinion is to call it "Messianic Christianity," even as our faith is the same, making both one and the same, and placing the onus on us to understand the Jewishness of Christianity; and on the Jewish Christian on understanding its transnational, transcultural, transtemporal implications. - res]

 

And what are the consequences of seeing Christianity — the 1st Century kind — as a kind of Judaism?

 

Daniel Boyarin, in his new and (for the first time for Boyarin) accessible book, The Jewish Gospels, proposes his way of understanding the relationship of Jesus-following Jews in the context of non-Jesus-following (or is that Jesus-non-following?) Jews. His book deserves a wide reading, even if I think there a chunks of chunks of issues not covered and crying out for some explanation. Boyarin is one of my favorite Jewish scholars who interprets earliest Christianity, though I have to admit that his writing is often very difficult to comprehend. His first work, The Radical Jew (about Paul) and then his Border Lines are important contributions to understanding the original relation of the two groups — Jesus followers and those Jews who did not follow Jesus.

 

I make the following observations from his book:

 

First, for Boyarin the key or secret to comprehending earliest Christology — how Jesus became a “part” of God (his word, an odd one to be sure) — is Daniel 7. Over and over he takes the reader back to Daniel 7 to explain how Jesus understood himself and his mission in his Jewish world.

 

Second, Boyarin belongs in a history of religions school that contends ancient Israel combined El with YHWH, and at least one main version was that El was the older god and YHWH the younger one, though eventually YHWH takes over El. This version of how God developed among Israelites finds a similar version in the relation of the Ancient of Days with the “one like a Son of Man” in Daniel 7, and he makes the thoroughly acceptable suggestion that the Son of Man is “part” of God — sometimes he says a “second God” — because the only one who rides on the clouds of heaven in the Old Testament is God. That makes Son of Man divine.

 

So, when Jesus uses Son of Man, he is referring to Daniel 7 (this is a major issue for many NT scholars), and if he is then “Son of Man” is a divine title while “Son of God” is a kingly, more human, Davidic title. So Boyarin is turning simplistic but quite traditional theology on its head.

[e.g., The traditional understanding is that "Son of Man" refers to Jesus' affinity with humanity - His human-ness; whereas "Son of God" referes to Jesus' affinity to divinity - His God-ness. However, this is simply read by our English eyes and ears ("man," "God") whereas by Boyarin's account, we are to read those titles biblically - in their context with Scripture. One that I much prefer, even though I understanding the practical symantic purpose of relating our English preference for Jesus' hypostatic union - that He is fully, and equally, both God and man, in His spirit and flesh. - res]

 

Third, there is good Jewish evidence supporting this kind of Christology at work in Judaism well before Jesus, so when Jesus called himself Son of Man, and with that meant divinity and messianic vocation, there was nothing offensive or non-Jewish about his claim. Boyarin points to 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra, and he’s right here — if it can be proven that these texts are pre-Jesus [and hence, apolcalytic - res].

 

Fourth, Jesus lived an entirely kosher life. Mark 7: 19′s famous statement is not about making all foods clean — so that he was saying you can eat bacon and eggs with milk and still be kosher — but about saying that foods are not sources of purity but instead morals are. Bodily fluids make one unclean; food doesn’t. Food is kosher but this is not the same as purity. Jesus was contesting the addition to the Torah — making foods purity/impurity — by the Pharisees. (Foods are either permitted or not permitted; foods are not clean/unclean or pure/impure.)

[In my church experiences, many times I have found well-meaning Christians making this same mistake; esp. my Christian Torah brethren, who emphasize the importance of observing diets, dress, calendar dates, and other such Jewish decorums for Christian rigor. Under Jesus and Paul, each say this is not necessary. For myself, I have decided my Christianity is Jewish, but that I am not a Jewish Christian, but a Messianic Christian, freed from all laws except God's law to love. - res]

 

Fifth, suffering was an element of the messianic vision in the Jewish world — and here he sketches stuff in Isaiah 53, how Jews read Isaiah 53, how messianic Jews today are keen on this connection (he says this is a bit embarrassing to some orthodox Jews), how Isaiah 43 was messianic for Jews … etc..

 

The result for Boyarin: it was the 4th Century and 5th Century that split Judaism into two religions, Christianity and Judaism. The heresiologists of those days said one had to believe one version of the Jewish vision of Jesus (Trinitarian version) or they were not Christian; and Jewish scholars then pronounced such views heresy. Thus we have two religions.

 

There are problems in his theory, not the least of which is the relationship of Jews and (non-Jewish) Christians already in the 2d Century — Justin Martyr et al — but the big vision is right: Christianity was part of Judaism and everything about Jesus was within the Jewish story.

 

 

 

Unfriended

 

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationships/unfriended#overlay-context=life/relationships/unfriended

 

By Preston Yancey
August 3, 2012

Preston Yancey is a blogger, painter and author of the forthcomingTables in the Wilderness: A Memoir of God Found, Lost, and Found Again (Rhizome Publishing). Visit Preston at www.seeprestonblog.com.

You used to be inseparable, but now you barely talk.

Exploring the sad reality of friendship erosion.

“We’ll keep in touch.”

This is the collegiate equivalent to writing HAGS! (Have a Great Summer!) or Don’t ever change! or I wish I had gotten to know you better! in someone’s yearbook when you graduate high school. It’s polite sentiment, acceptable intimacy, and commits us to everything we wish we could bring ourselves to feel without ever having to feel it.

As freshly minted young adults turned out from four years of college facing hiring options and reruns during the summer, checking our phones every few minutes to see if our once close friends still remembered that we’re breathing, we are left with the annoying anxiety that our lives weren’t supposed to end up like this.

We are left with the annoying anxiety that our lives weren’t supposed to end up like this.

If we believe the television—and many of us do—the ties we formed carefully over our collegiate career or any period of high-pressure intimacy, were supposed to ferry us into the embrace of adulthood and provide comfort when rent came due or break-ups snapped.

According to the movies, we all have a clever best friend who—no matter what time we called, pouring coffee out of a stainless steel french press and about to sit down to a dinner in good company, would wax long poetic to us when we mourned our bank statement before he offered a bit of cracking, wise insight as the music swelled (because in this world, we live set to a soundtrack scored by Ben Gibbard) and everything that had ever needed explaining would be majestically made clear. We would be reassured, and then we would have dessert.

Grey’s Anatomy lied to us. Meredith and Christina’s tight-knit friendship, which was identified most clearly by their reference to one another as each other’s person, is perhaps sustainable only in a world of 24 episode seasons an hour a week with hiatus during summer and midwinter. For outside of a carefully crafted script, we usually don’t end up having an actual person, let alone the poet friend waiting patiently and perennially by the phone.

In reality, our bank statement comes the moment we overdraft our debit card buying a cup of coffee we are positive we can both afford and also deserve after hours of interviewing for minimum wage jobs we are at once overqualified and under-qualified to hold. When we call our best friend from college to lament, his response on answering his phone is that he’s busy and will call back the next day. He does a week later, when we’re still overdrafting, buying more coffee, which we reason is cheaper than therapy, and he tells us that he’s still busy and he’ll call again soon.

HAGS!

What happened? Weren’t we supposed to have it all? Between Twitter and iPhones and Starbucks and Gap commercials and college degrees, weren’t we supposed to have our best life now? Weren’t all those people who told us at graduation that they would love us forever supposed to, perhaps, show that love in some tangible form?

It’s understandable that jobs, relationships, family and opportunity spring young people in all different directions. But after the parting of ways, shouldn’t friendship be more than a Facebook “Like” after three months of no contact?

In the summer following college, though some friends remained, geography’s cruel conspiracy springs friends in all different directions, and we are left with the waning of texts, emails and the occasional Skype conversation interrupted by lives lived beyond each other. We neglect a long overdue phone call with a friend, and so “Like” their Facebook status instead as proof of closeness. We all know how easy it is to neglect people when we don’t see them anymore, when we actually have to work to connect.

So, what do we do?

We are not now what we thought we would be then, back when we promised to always be there for each other, when we thought we’d always laugh at our secret jokes.

We lean into two hard places our hearts are not naturally inclined to embrace: perspective and grace.

We all haunt someone’s grace limit.

Yes, Grey’s Anatomy lied, and the people we thought would be our people weren’t always who we had wished they would be. As blogger Carlos Whittaker says, “We all haunt someone’s grace limit.” Though it would be fair to say that we can’t be in the wrong all the time and if we feel slightly abandoned by those we love, there is likely some truth in it, it is also true that there is someone, somewhere we are presently neglecting in our own lives. Someone probably thinks we’re their person and a pretty bad one at that. We stopped calling, we didn’t text back, and while we sit watching reruns and frustrated that our person isn’t calling us back, this someone else is feeling the same about us. Maybe we should take out our phones, roll through the last month of texts and emails, and ask the hard question of if we’ve been Christ to those we did not reply to.

Further, there is something we love about grace when it means that all we need to do is to sit back and pray for the person in question to repent. We are less fond when grace means that we keep loving and keep extending even when we receive nothing in return. But this returns us to Christ. We have been entrusted with a feast, the abundance of a God who has and continues to give, and by His Spirit equips us to feed from our storehouses. Grace would have us keep feeding, even during the rerun watching, and would expect us to stop expecting what others, perhaps, do not have in their storehouse to give.

So between all the falsehood of saying, “We’ll keep in touch,” perhaps there is a truth we speak when we say it. A hope. Perhaps a sort of promise. It is the audacious commitment that as Christ never withdrew His touch from those around Him, from the leper, from the sick, from the wealthy, from the poor, so too can we respond to the phone call from our once good friend who is just too busy with a simple, honest, and charitable, “I understand.”

Maybe then we’ll really have it all. In this way of grace, we’ll have all we need.

Jesus, The True Remedy for any Addiction We Fight

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/whole-life/reversing-grip-addiction#overlay-context=life/whole-life/reversing-grip-addiction

Reversing the Grip of Addiction

By April Byrd
July 13, 2012

April D. Byrd is a writer located near Atlanta, GA. She is the founder and editor of the blog Breath Of Life Daily, a site dedicated to be a resource of inspiration and celebrate life as it's lived. For more insights and inspiration follow her follow her on Twitter @aprilinspired.

Ask any child of an alcoholic or drug abuser and they will tell you—addictions are ugly. As a firsthand witness of my mother’s struggle as a child, I will tell you the same. It was painful to see how addiction consumed her life and it was hard to be around her when she was in the thick of it. She fought hard, and sometimes her strength came through, but I never knew what type of mood or mindset she would be in. Her instability negatively affected not only her life, but the lives of those around her.

Immediately from birth, life is a shocker. We develop and grow, but there remains a natural human inclination to reach out to anything substantial, to stabilize us and lend us support. For some people, this innate need can turn into a full-blown addiction. In fact, 16 percent of the U.S. population is dependent on alcohol, nicotine, or other drugs.

Addiction has both a personal and national effect. It is a disease that runs its course in the brain, and a new report shows that substance abuse beat out obesity as the number one health problem in America. It is also America's number one healthcare cost, claiming approximately 30 percent of our federal and state healthcare spending.

Many of us do not even realize we suffer from addiction, or we live in denial, but an addiction can still consume and drain us even if we do not acknowledge it. Sadly, the very attempt to gain stability can actually tip our lives into a dangerous imbalance. The overly consuming nature of addiction can take over the minds of addicts, and destroy their lives.

A Surface Cure for a Deeper Problem

But not all addiction is chemically based. We also hold dependencies on things that might not necessarily be negative such as sex, food or social media. But for all the social media junkies out there, America has a bigger problem than our Facebook obsession. With new media and technology advancement, it’s now easier to become addicted to the approval of others. Addictions stem from the need to be satiated and to feel whole or complete, which can be superficially fulfilled with a simple Facebook “like” or admiring blog comment. No matter the substance, the root of addiction is the same: to fill or to meet personal inadequacies. Often an addiction is used as a substitute to avoid having to face a deeper issue.

Given all the studies, there is only one “addiction” that has never produced any negative results.

The obsessive tendency in America abounds, but what if there is such a thing as a good addiction? Is it possible that an addiction could be more productive than consumptive?

A Different Kind of Substance

Given all the studies, there is only one “addiction” that has never produced any negative results. The side effects are more beneficial than terminal, and it actually increases focus rather than inhibiting it.

Perhaps the most controversial dependency of all, the Bible calls faith “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen” (Hebrews 11:1). There may a stigma attached to it at times, but faith is the most captivating power on earth.

Faith is a stimulant, producing with the Holy Spirit the side effects of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Faith is grown by passing the word; it is more powerful when it is lit with passion. It is life-changing for those who receive it. It empowers us to overcome, instead of going under. And many of us can speak of the medicinal quality of joy and laughter.

Choosing Better Habits

Addictive tendencies can result from suppressed passion, so activate your faith and allow it to stimulate your life. Stay busy, and feed those activities that drive your passion. We are all given something that we’re good at and love. Choose something that creates a positive and productive effect in your life, and go for it. Keep your hands and your mind busy. Actively pursue your passion, instead of waiting for it to come to you.

Also, keep in mind that faith is based in trust. Just like the good force behind every AA meeting, support is essential, and you are never alone. There is someone in your corner you can always turn to. Even if our parents are not physically or even mentally there, we have a Father who loves us. He knows all, sees all and cares immensely.

When I was eighteen, my mother lost her life battling a drug addiction, and I will miss having her as an active part of my life because of it. I know all too well the toxic toll an addiction can take on a life, but I also know what it means to be whole because of faith. The greatest substance I know of is faith in Christ—the true remedy for any void we try to fill through an addiction.

9 Quick Ways to Get "Depressed"

Photo via Shutterstock

 

9 Quick Ways to Get "Depressed"

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/whole-life/9-quick-ways-get-depressed      

By Nicole Unice
July 11, 2012

Nicole Unice is a counselor, ministry leader and author of She’s Got Issues (Tyndale, 2012). Her 20-something volunteers call her their “life coach.” She calls them friends. Connect with her on Twitter or at her website.

There are those who are truly depressed, and then those who are "depressed." To achieve the latter, simply follow these 9 steps and you'll be a self-pitying sad sack in no time.

“I don’t know … I just wonder if I might be depressed.” As a counselor and ministry leader, I’m often the one who hears about how people are “really” doing. And for every 10 times I’ve been consulted about a bleak mood, only two or three of my 20-something friends actually has diagnosable and clinical depression.

The rest of them are experiencing a tough spell, a general malaise, a “meh” mood, and most were even contributing to that mood with their own life choices. How about you? Here’s 10 quick ways to find yourself down and deflated:

1) Nurse Resentments

Assume the worst in people. When you feel ignored, misunderstood or mistreated, assume it’s because the person really hates you and is disgusted by your presence. Enter a cycle of hating yourself and hating other people. Repeat this script to yourself all day and night, and subject yourself to the mental equivalent of grabbing a shovel and digging your own grave.

2) Live in the Past

While you are busy nursing resentments, go ahead and let yourself think of all the other times the same thing has happened. Make sure you color a rosy glow over everything from the past you wish you still had, and a black cloud of doom over everything from the past that was painful. Create a story of extremes, and look for ways to repeat the cycle in your current life.

3) Ignore Your Body

Don’t listen to your body. If you feel tired, don’t rest. If you have an erratic sleep schedule, keep at it. Also, eat a lot of processed junk food that will shoot your blood sugar to the stratosphere and then send you crashing down without a parachute. Eat when you are stressed, stock up on caffeine when you are tired, and keep at it for more than three days in a row. When you feel run down, don’t listen. When you need to relieve stress by exercise, have a Red Bull instead.

If you want to be depressed, just go about this world as if you can be healthy without working at it at all.

4) Ignore Your Soul

Pretend you are a machine. Don’t think too hard about the junk you are feeding your soul, just assume that it all filters out and you aren’t affected by wasted time, sad love songs, boredom, stupid YouTube videos or sarcastic, misogynistic movies. Don’t take your soul seriously. Make sure you don’t read or listen to anything edifying throughout your day. Just go about this world as if you can be healthy without working at it at all.

5) Believe the Lie That Everyone Has It All Together ... Except You

Believe TV. Believe romantic comedies. Look around at your acquaintances and believe that their life is so much better than yours.

6) Become a Cynic

Start to believe the following things: people don’t change, life generally sucks and avoiding pain is more important than risking love.

7) Never Cry

Don’t ever show weakness. Don’t be sad. Don’t cry. If you ever think the dam is about to break, hold back the tears with all the strength you can muster. Completely ignore any reason why you might be crying, and if you do think about it for a few minutes, make sure you tell yourself that whatever loss or pain is causing you to be upset is definitely stupid and unimportant.

8) Never Apologize

Don’t ever admit to being wrong. Even when you know you are wrong, justify your reasons. Let your self-defense keep you puffed up and protected. Choose to guard yourself over loving the people around you who need to know that you are, in fact, human and make mistakes. Tell yourself that they’ll get over it, and carry on.

9) Maintain an Impossible Standard for Yourself and Everyone Else

Set yourself up for failure. Make sure you believe that everything you ever attempt must be a stellar success, that failure is not an option. Listen to the part of you that’s terrified at failing and will prevent you from ever trying anything, or listen to the part of you that believes you’ll always do it right, and try, fail and hate yourself. Expect the same from everyone around you. Expect those you love to always know what to say and to do to make you feel better. When they don’t, use the same self-loathing voices that you beat yourself with to push back.

I believe we all have our 10th way to get depressed, but it’s unique to you. Perhaps its about being with an unhealthy friendship that brings you down. Maybe it’s stalking someone on Facebook that you need to unfriend. Maybe it’s a phone number you need to delete from your phone.

Maybe you read through these steps and none of them sound good to you. In that case, take all 10 steps, reverse, and be healthy.

Free depression inventories can be a helpful tool to evaluate the severity of your mood. You can take this one developed by the Mayo Clinic for more information.

Are You Emotionally Healthy?

Are You Emotionally Healthy?

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/whole-life/are-you-emotionally-healthy

By Debra K Fileta
June 24, 2012

Debra K. Fileta is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in Relationship and Marital issues. She, her husband and two children live in Hershey, PA. She is currently writing her first book on dating and finding true love. Visit her blog at: http://debslessonslearned.blogspot.com/ or follow her on Twitter @DebFileta

Your emotional well-being matters.

Here's how to give yourself a check up.

Bathing suit season is upon us. Look around at any department store and the preamble of summer is resonating in the aisles. Yes, it’s that time of year when people are watching their weight, trimming their waist lines and preparing their bodies for exposure to the world.

It’s as though the better you look on the outside, the better you’ll feel on the inside.

I’m amazed at how much time and energy we, as a society, put into our fitness and well-being and how little we invest in the other components of who we are. Even in our Christian societies where the stress may not be on physical fitness, the focus is definitely on the spiritual components. While both of these things are important areas to invest in, one part in particular that seems to be severely neglected is the area of our emotional health: a person’s functioning in thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

There is nothing more sobering than getting to know yourself as a whole person.

My career as a professional counselor has given me an awareness to this area because I spend my time interacting with people who seem so put together on the outside, but inside, their emotional worlds are in total disarray. Every day I meet men and women who work so hard at “keeping it together” for the eyes of those around them, rather than working at actually healing the inside. We get so good at perfecting our masks and living our lives behind the shadows.

In order to be healthy and whole as individuals, we have to begin living in an introspective way and learning what it means to look within. That’s hard to do in a world so fixated on the tangible and the outward. It’s crucial to be aware of our emotional temperature, as well as the things that bring us toward healing or hurt.

But this is all easier said than done. Just like anything else, the journey toward emotional health takes time and energy. While there are many ways to begin tackling this world within, here are some practices to examine as a start to your emotional check-up:

Thinking

As you journal, you will find that patterns begin to emerge within your thinking. These patterns of thinking are likely to reveal a lot about your emotional health. For some, even when the circumstances in their lives may be difficult, the pattern of thinking that continues to make its appearance is positive and encouraging. For others, no matter the circumstances, the negative patterns of thinking continue to emerge, inhibiting positive emotions and even preventing success. Our mind is such a powerful tool, and it’s a primary contributor to our emotional health. God knew this well as He discussed the power of the mind and the importance of healthy thinking time and time again through Scripture (Proverbs 23:7, Philippians 4:8, Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 10:5). It’s vital to recognize our thinking patterns and habits, and to begin the practice of reclaiming them to health.

Feeling

To be emotionally healthy means we align our emotions to reality, rather than allow them to become reality.

I couldn’t possibly write an article about emotional health without addressing the component of emotions! The interesting thing to note, though, is I never start at the emotions. It’s important to understand emotions serve a purpose; they are given to us as a compass to help point us toward the right track in our lives and our relationships. But due to the negative life circumstances beyond our control, the inevitable results of the fall, and our own personal mistakes, sometimes our compasses can be in desperate need of repair. To be an emotionally healthy person means to live a life that while it may be directed by emotions, it is not dictated by them. It’s important to reflect on our emotions and to keep them in check, remembering that just because we feel something doesn’t always mean it is truth. Stress, frustration, fear, excitement, guilt and anger are just a few of the emotions that can serve as a tool to drive us to action. But to be emotionally healthy means we align our emotions to reality, rather than allow them to become reality.

Interacting

Another reflection of our emotional world is found in the quality of our interactions with others on a day-to-day basis. Is our life made up of positive, enriching relationships, or are we engaged with those who take, diminish and rob us of our joy? Your relationships determine a lot about your emotional health because, as the saying goes, “You teach people how to treat you.” In essence, we are in charge of the kind of interactions we are willing to engage in and which ones we choose to disengage. We are in charge of the boundaries and the limits we set in the relationships in our lives and our emotional health will either empower or inhibit us in doing so.

Behaving

The last thing to examine as part of your emotional check up comes down to your external behaviors. Like it or not, what we do tells us a lot about who we are. The activities, habits and behaviors we engage in stem from the seed of emotional health or dysfunction that have been watered within our lives. Take a look at how you spend your time and the activities you choose to participate in. An emotionally healthy person will see the fruit of things that build them up and benefit their lives, while an emotionally unhealthy person will see a pattern of destruction and harm.

What we do tells us a lot about who we are.

There is nothing more sobering than getting to know yourself as a whole person. I consider this process to be comparable to holding a mirror up to your face. It’s a sure way to look your emotional world straight in the eye by seeing your thoughts, feelings, behaviors and interactions in a way you may have never looked at them before.

In order to get a good gauge of your emotional health, you have to allow yourself to come face to face with these things. For some people, it’s hard. They just aren’t prepared to dig deep and discover what’s really going on inside. Doing so uncovers some deep seated emotional pain they would rather keep stuffing than bring to the surface. The practice of an emotional check up may be hard, but it’s an important first step in taking action when it comes to your ultimate healing. The beautiful thing about this particular process is that you are in control, choosing when to go deep and when to come up for air. Use this emotional check up as an opportunity to begin the journey of taking off the mask and getting to know the real person inside.