Notes to accompany "Discipleship - Emotional Health , Week 2 "

Looking beneath the surface

Icebergs

The Poison word Bible

The reality for most of us is that we have not allowed Jesus to transform the deep layers beneath the surface

Proverbs 4: 3

Psalm 139: 23-24

Painful honesty

John 8: 32

C.S. Lewis:  “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. We change our behaviour when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.

1.  Need to be aware of what we’re feeling and doing

 Jesus was deeply aware of who He was and what He was doing.  John 13: 3-5

Jesus could express His emotions fully without repressing them or projecting them onto others.
Taking a deep, long look inside is not about introspection.  It’s about allowing the Gospel to transform you fully.
How can you enter someone else’s world when you haven’t entered your own?

2.  What’s going on?  Why?

Jesus often posed the Why question.
John 4  Why are you at the well in the middle of the day?  Why are you running from man to man?
Mark 7: 14-15, 22-23   Why are you so intent on external behaviour?   What’s going on inside?

It’s painful to ask ourselves why?

• Why do I always react like that?
• Why do I avoid some people?
• Why am I fearful and anxious?
• Why do I avoid confrontation?

Pascal:  “All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone”

The Gospel says that you and I are more sinful and flawed than we ever realised, and yet you and I are more accepted and loved than we ever dared hope.  2 Corinthians 5: 21

God sees the 90% of the iceberg hidden below the surface and He utterly, totally loves you in Christ.