La Familia | Emotionally Healthy Families

In my young adult years, I wanted to be great at doing things: I wanted to be a great student, a great writer, a great musician, and a great runner, but now in my adulthood years, my longing for greatness has evolved from doing into being. Now, I want to be a great husband, a great father, and a great pastor. I want to be a man of great character and integrity.

But greatness is hard…

Just a few days ago, we returned from the most magical place on earth to celebrate all 3 of my kids’ birthdays, two of our cousins birthdays, and a family anniversary - all between Jan 18 and Jan 27. All of us were together, and we celebrated with a hundred thousand of our closest friends. Truly, it was great!

On day 3 of our adventure, we celebrated my daughter’s birthday at the Magic Kingdom. For days leading up to the event, Hannah reminded us sweetly, but daily, that she wanted a balloon. It’s a $13 balloon at the Magic Kingdom, but I want to be a great father, so as soon as we walk through the gates, my wife took to buy the balloon of her choice. Great father, great mother moment, and for the next 8 hours or so, she played with such delight, even nicknaming the balloon, “Ballooney.” No joke!

As I’m packing the van and reflecting on a great day, I folded her stroller, and then from nowhere, POP, the ballon breaks from the string and flies into the blue sky.

Immediately, my daughter melts down into tears and crying, as if her best friend just abandoned her. Ballooney!!!

Immediately, I felt the rage begin to well up from deep within me - Dad’s you know that place - the molten lava core from deep within you that wants to explode from the volcano pit of your mouth.

I wanted to break the stroller, and right before I did, somehow by the grace of God, I remember thinking to myself, “Ryan, gather yourself, you want to be a great husband, you want to be a great father, you are preaching on this very topic in 5 days. This is not about you. Go and show her your love and get her another balloon.

If you have ever been to the Magic Kingdom, then you know it is impossible to get inside of the Magic Kingdom. You walk 10 miles and then get on a tram. And then you get on a ferry boat. And then you stand in 3 different lines before you walk into Main Street.

So breaking all of the rules, we drove to where the buses turn inside, and then I hopped out, ran about a half a mile to the entrance, found a the balloon guy, told him my story and said, “Bro, please help me out. Without hesitation, he grabbed an Elsa and Anna balloon, double tied the knot, gave me the balloon, and then told me as I turned to sprint the half mile back: “Have a magical day!”

Greatness is hard, my friends. But the hard is what makes it great!

Inc. Magazine published an article about achieving greatness, stating: “Being great is not about ego or selfishness. The path to greatness consists of having a strong and genuine desire, a good purpose, and also having good company along the way.” (“27 Powerful Quotes to Bring Out the Real Greatness in You” 27 Aug 2015).

This is La Familia!

Greatness is not about yourself, nor is it a solo sport.

Greatness requires growing emotional self awareness and emotional health, which happens first and foremost in tu familia.

Thus, if you want to be great, then your first step toward your achieving your calling toward greatness begins… at home.

I know for some of you this may be a difficult first step to take.

Regardless of your current parental or relational status, how you received emotional health during your childhood years will determine how you give emotional health during your adulthood years. Particularly with your family.

Some of you right now are enjoying the benefits of healthy and safe emotional relationships because your parents formed healthy and safe emotional and physical attachments with you.

While others of you… have been hurt… or have hurt others… because you were hurt… either inadvertently or intentionally by the very people who were supposed to love you.

Friend, if this describes you, then hear the good news of Jesus: your past hurts and present insecurities do not have to define you. The Good News of Jesus announced a way through your hurts into freedom. You are not merely the sum of your circumstances. You have been created in the image of your Creator and given a pathway to emotional health.

Recently, my sister in law found her 4 year old son sitting quietly by himself. When she asked him what he was doing, he said to her, “Mommy, I’m talking to my brain.”

Today, this is a safe place to talk to your brain and your heart by listening to how Jesus taught about greatness through the pathway of emotional health.

Written by one of Jesus’ original disciples, Matthew recorded:

About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” (Matthew 18:1)

Perhaps the kind of question you might expect from a group of teenage and 20-something adolescent disciples on the very early growing edges of emotional maturity. :) No offense to my young adult friends in here. :)

Like children in grown men’s bodies, they asked Jesus one of the most childish, self-centered, ego-driven questions in all of the Gospels: ‘Who’s the greatest in Kingdom of Heaven?’

The irony is that by this time these guys has been with Jesus for more than two years, and their question completely contradicted so much of what they had heard Jesus teach, such as what Matthew recorded in the moments leading to their question:

God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him,

for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. Matthew 5:3

Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12

For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners. Matthew 9:13

If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. Matthew 10:39

Do you think Jesus had every right to feel frustrated by this question? Sure! But even still Jesus showed compassion and grace to these men, for instead of rebuking them for such asking such a childish question…

Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. Matthew 18:2 and said to them: I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Matthew 18:3

True greatness is found in the opposite direction of your ego and pride. In fact, Jesus calls your ego and pride a sin.

Jesus called out their sinful childish ways and instead challenged them to live child-like.

How offensive to call grown men to become like little children.

During the first century, most viewed children as less than a human being. In fact, the first century Koine Greek language, which is the language of the New Testament, affirms this by how people spoke about children.

Just like today’s Spanish language, Koine Greek assigned masculine and feminine forms to nouns. The Greek word for child, however, was a neutered noun, which means that it did not possess either a masculine or feminine form. Thus, the only way that a Koine Greek speaking individual could refer to a child was an ‘it’ like a thing or an animal.

Society as a whole gave very little to no dignity to children.

Little girls, especially, suffered in the ancient world, and many of them still suffer in our world today. Girls often cost the family more money to raise than boys, since boys could work and earn additional income. If parents did not want to raise a daughter, then common practice allowed them to leave their infant girl in a field to perish in the elements or sell her (and sometimes boys, too) into prostitution or additional income.

Given these cultural norms, Jesus called a little child to himself, perhaps a little girl even, and stood her among those men in order to confront their assumptions about greatness and instead show them how child-like characteristics point to true greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven, characteristics such as:

Seeing the world with clear eyes

Trusting with a full heart

Ready to listen

Open to love and being loved

Eager to learn

Creative and imaginative

Captivated by wonder

Marked by growth

Imitate these characteristics, Jesus says. Don’t become a child, but embody the characteristics of a child, which means learning how to understand and feel your life, your world, your God, and yourself through the other end of the telescope when you appear small, but God appears big!

I understand how foolish this sounds. Even Paul wrote in the beginning of his first letter to the church in Corinth how foolish the message of Jesus sounded to the Greeks.

The standards of our work, education, and of society in general inherently drive us toward achieving self-centered greatness above all others, even if it means hurting someone else to achieve our greatness.

This isn’t just a 21st century Miami issue, either. Obviously, Jesus’ own disciples were thinking about greatness in the very same way, and their childish ego and pride not only caused them to sin, but ultimately, placed them in jeopardy of missing the kingdom of Heaven entirely.

My 3 year old boy knows about ego and selfishness. Living out of your ego and pride is a childish pursuit. Living for the Kingdom ofHeaven, however, calls us to emotional self-awareness and health. Living for the Kingdom of Heaven beckons us to lose our life in order to find it.

Friends, this pursuit of greatness mattered to Jesus. He said,

So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. Matthew 18:4-5

Jesus answered his disciple’s question because He loves us past our sinful inclinations and desires for all of us to become great in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus didn’t shame them. He led them. Jesus modeled emotional health and leadership maturity.

Always in our lives, Jesus meets us in our place of sin and pain and offers us a way through it into his safety and security… into his forgiveness and salvation.

I must admit here… that even as I say this… I feel a visceral response pushing back against me, wanting to hold onto my control and strive for my own personal greatness.

I want these things just as much as the next man, and the messaging of our culture affirms this.

And yet, every time I choose myself, I have discovered - just like you - that once again those deep-seated emotions of pride - however they raise up for you - always, always, always distort and finally destroy all of the good in our lives.

As difficult and backward as this may feel, I want to ask you: how might your life change if you filtered your pursuits through healthy emotions, such as these, and I want to read them to you so that you hear them and remember them:

Humility

Empathy

Affection

Contentment

Courage

Hope

Satisfaction

Joy

Pleasure

Excitement

Delight

Trust

Love

How might your relationships change and your friendships evolve if you chose to work through your emotional pain and hurts in order to achieve emotional health? How might your career path begin to align with your gifts and abilities? How might the way you talk to others change, including your spouse, your children, your colleagues, and even strangers? How might the way you rest and recreate be different?

How might your life change if you filtered out the childish pursuits of your life and chose to embody child-like characteristics?

Let me acknowledge that I am well aware that many of you may be agreeing with Jesus’ words in theory, but wandering how this practically works out tomorrow when you roll up your sleeves and hit the Monday morning grind with deadlines, bottom-lines, management issues, personnel matters, travel schedules, family pains, all of it.

Tomorrow morning, what if you talked to your brain and your heart and stayed in tune with how you felt, rather than being driven by the molten lava core inside of you that wants to erupt through your mouth.

My 3 year old erupts from his mouth with anger and stomps his foot and says words that he later regrets. Any child can do that.

An emotionally healthy man or woman seeking the Kingdom of Heaven, however, listens first and seeks to understand.

An emotionally healthy man or woman seeking the Kingdom of Heaven feels more than just the stereotypical mad, sad, and glad.

Peter Scazzero, author of The Emotionally Healthy Church, said: With one breath, God made us human. Yet, somehow, today we slice out the emotional portion of who we are, deeming it suspect, irrelevant, or of secondary importance… Nowhere, however, does a good biblical theology support such a division. (P. 51)

Instead, an emotionally healthy man or woman recognizes a wide range of emotions and feels them all the way through to completion in order to move on from a difficult situation.

An emotionally healthy man or woman seeking the Kingdom of Heaven empathizes with another human being and feels what that other person feels, even in disagreement.

An emotionally healthy man or woman seeking the Kingdom of Heaven leads others with intention and compassion. Regardless of your place of employment or your hierarchical authority, people follow emotionally healthy and secure leaders who show compassion. Period. A friend of mine who once served in senior level management at Genentech in San Francisco, #8 on Fortune’s ‘Best Companies to Work For’ list and worth more than 43 billion dollars, told me that they touted compassion as one of their highest staff values. Compassion. If they can do it, then so can your place of employment.

Tomorrow morning, I am challenging you to think differently about your emotional health. It isn’t a sign of weakness. It is your greatest strength at home, at work, and in your recreation.

An emotionally healthy man or woman seeking the Kingdom of Heaven seeks to serve others. This past week, we honored one of my heroes, Martin Luther King, Jr., who once said: “Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service."

An emotionally healthy man or woman seeking the Kingdom of Heaven sees others for how their Creator God sees them.

In the verses that follow, Jesus gave his harshest warnings against those who harm children and the most vulnerable and neglected in our society. They matter to God, and as Jesus followers, they also need to also matter to us.

Often, children suffer, along with the lowly and at-risk, because we miss seeing them for not being able to see past our own pride and selfishness.

Throughout the witness of God’s word to us, we know that God despises that and so do the people of God.

Don’t miss them for your chasing your own greatness.

God sees them and feels compassion and mercy toward them. These are emotional words. Our God is an emotional God. Our God is an up close and feeling God, so close in fact that God sees the faces of their angels, as Jesus said in verse 10.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;

he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Psalm 34:18

Our Heavenly Father sees, feels, and responds.

Do Jesus’ words about God align with your worldview and understanding about God?

Our Heavenly Father exemplifies emotional health and does so always in regard for the lost and the hurting.

Let me ask you a question: at what point in your life did unhealthy, disintegrating emotions become your new norma? For instance, allow me to read these words to you in order for you to feel them and respond to them:

Indifference

Worry

Fear

Anger

Grief

Frustration

Disappointment

Cruelty

Pride

Hate

Do these emotions feel more familiar to you in your everyday life than the healthier emotions that I listed a few minutes ago?

When did these unhealthy emotions become your normal? Whatever place of pain arises to your mind is exactly where your Heavenly Father desires to meet you… in your pain… in your hurt… in your weakness. In those places, your Heavenly Father’s perfects his emotional strength and healing touch.

At the close of this conversation, what started with the disciples asking about greatness closes with one Jesus’ most well known stories about something lost. Jesus said:

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away! In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father’s will that even one of these little ones should perish. Matthew 18:12-14

All of those who chase down greatness with their own pride and ego are lost.

This parable teaches us many attributes about how the character of God calls us to lead emotionally healthy families:

God’s love is an individual love.

God’s love is a patient love.

God’s love is a seeking love. Truly, this may be the one of the more difficult attributes for people to comprehend about God: that a holy God would pursue a sinful people like us. We tend to operate under a ‘you get what you deserve’ type of mentality. Yet, throughout this whole narrative, Jesus calls us back to our Heavenly Father’s amazing grace for us, especially those of us who wander astray to chase down our own way. Even then, Jesus seeks to find us and lead us home. This story is the story of us, and God’s seeking love is unrelenting.

God’s love is a rejoicing love. No grudges, no shame, no bail bond to pay. God feels only joy for every lost and wandering heart who turns away from his or her own greatness and into the arms of the one ready to receive you.

God’s love is a protecting love. God’s love seeks and saves. In your Heavenly Father’s arms, once found, no matter who once stepped on you, no matter who once hurt you, your Heavenly Father will restore you and guard your heart from all evil. In our broken world, you will certainly face trials and challenges, but in Christ, those circumstances do not have to have the final word over your life.

Our Heavenly Father sees, feels, and responds.

Emotionally healthy families see, feel, and respond to one with honor, integrity, and character of heart. Emotionally healthy families live with:

Interest over indifference

Peace over Worry

Hope over fear

Gratitude over anger

Joy over grief

Patience over frustration

Contentment over disappointment

Sympathy over cruelty

Humility over pride

Love over hate

Emotionally healthy families begin here [[[Point to your heart]]] and choose the Kingdom of Heaven over their own greatness.

Emotionally healthy families courageously acknowledge their places of hurt and allow the healing balm of Christ to bring restoration to their heart and soul.

Emotionally healthy families see their children through the lens of their Heavenly Father.

Emotionally healthy families see the lost of our society and restore dignity through empathy. Instead of turning your face from the homeless man at the traffic intersection, look at him in the eyes and offer a good morning or even a ‘God bless you.’

Emotionally healthy families recognize that all of us are lost and in need of God’s saving love.

Your emotional health is not impossible, nor is it suspect or irrelevant, nor is it a sign of weakness. Indeed, your emotional health is your God given leadership mandate at home, work, and with yourself!

As we seek emotional health with our families and among our Christ Journey familia, may we discover that our greatest witnesses as a church, as the village of the Spirit, will forever be how we love God and others as we love ourselves.

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