Happy Monday!

I thought I’d try putting some thoughts and encouragement out weekly to keep you in tune with our conversations from Sundays. (We’ll see how long I keep this up!)

Yesterday we continued in the third week of our Surfacing series and I challenged you to understand that to know God more intimately we had to come to know ourselves more intimately… and that to know ourselves more intimately we had to know God more intimately. A tension for sure! But one that’s well worth the energy of digging below the surface of our lives.

Our emotions matter. God created the fullness of who we are - including our anger, disgust, fear, sadness, joy, excitement, and more. For whatever reason, we have developed a culture that pushes those emotions aside as Pete Scazzero says, “as untrustworthy.” No longer! We need the work of digging deep. Pressing into the things God has for us. Examining the depths of our feelings as a place where God may want to speak to us in new ways. Hard? Yes. Terrifying? Absolutely. And also beautiful.

But how do we do this?
I offered - from Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Spirituality - four steps to knowing ourselves:

Examine your interior in solitude and silence.
Find trusted companions.
Pray for courage.
Move out of your comfort zone.

Each of these are difficult and may force new rhythms or courageous steps into our lives. But they are the pathway to self-knowledge, and therefore a richer knowledge of God.

As we head toward next week, we’re going to have some fun discussing this personality assessment called the Enneagram. Would you take it before we gather? Here’s the link.