1: DEFINING THE DISCIPLESHIP PROBLEM

IN A WORLD INFECTED WITH SIN, emotional pain is a universal human reality. Whether this pain is self-inflicted due to poor choices or it comes at the hands of other people or through difficult circumstances, emotional pain is real and can be as debilitating as physical pain. Allowed to linger in the heart, emotional pain will often produce additional issues, such as depression, anxiety, loneliness, fear, anger, unforgiveness, and a range of other problems that can wreak havoc in our lives.

Many believers in Christ attempt to numb their emotional pain through sinful behavior and addictions. These responses create barriers to transformation. Whether we sin or are sinned against, the spiritual/emotional conflicts sin produces keep us stuck and hinder our ability to experience the abundant life available in Christ.

The Greatest Barrier to Spiritual Growth

I have been shocked to discover the large number of Christians who feel stuck in their spiritual growth as a result of sin and unresolved emotional pain. About a decade ago, Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, conducted a survey of their congregation. By 2015, the Reveal study had been administered in approximately two thousand churches, including an estimated 425,000 participants.[1] The findings were alarming:

These findings present a very real problem that is not being addressed by traditional means of discipleship: Bible study, prayer, small-group participation, church programs, Christian service, and financial generosity. There is more Bible-study curriculum available today than ever before, more books pertaining to spiritual formation and growth, more biblical teaching available on Facebook Live, Vimeo, and YouTube, and an ever-increasing number of excellent Christian podcasts. Yet large numbers of believers confess to being stuck in addiction and behaviors that hinder their growth in Christ. The vast amount of good biblical information is not facilitating much in the way of transformation.

To put it simply, the great barrier to spiritual growth among many Christians living in North America is due to unresolved emotional pain.

In order to address this problem, we need to understand how spiritual growth and emotional health influence each other. We need a more holistic and biblical understanding of the heart—one’s inner being, composed of thought, emotion, and will—to discover how unresolved emotional pain contributes to the spiritual/emotional conflicts that hinder the transformation process. Until we develop a more whole-hearted approach to discipleship, we will continue to perpetuate the problem.

Maybe you’re aware of a gap between where you are and where you think you should be in your life as a Christian. I’ve been a Christian for over forty years and a pastor for twenty-seven years. I have advanced degrees in theology. And yet I still struggle spiritually and emotionally. I can assure you that these problems are not due to a lack of biblical knowledge, spiritual-growth practices, or a desire to be a godly man. As with so many of us, the barrier to my growth in Christ is unresolved emotional pain.

My Story

When I was five years old, my parents divorced. Of course, it was never their intention to cause me harm—my parents loved me and did the best they could in a very difficult situation. However, I’m tenderhearted by nature, and following their divorce, I experienced intense feelings of rejection, abandonment, and fear. These feelings promoted spiritual/emotional conflicts that distorted my perception of God, myself, and others. They were held together by a deep sense of shame.

My feelings of rejection, abandonment, fear, and shame increased during my early adolescent years. I struggled to fit in with other kids at school, and my insecurities made me an easy target for bullies. My neediness and hunger for adult approval was annoying to my teachers.

A few years after my parents divorced, they each remarried. My stepmother was kind and nurturing, but my stepfather, while being a good provider and husband to my mother, was stern and emotionally unavailable. His gruff impatience only contributed to my feelings of rejection, abandonment, fear, and shame.

When I was twelve, my mother and stepfather sent me from California to Utah to live on their ranch with my grandparents. This was meant to be temporary while my stepfather waited for a job transfer to a new power plant under construction, but the approval process dragged on and the project was eventually canceled. I ended up living with my grandparents in Utah for three years. While I’m grateful that during that time I became a Christian (I responded to an invitation given by Billy Graham during one of his TV crusades), my emotional turmoil continued as I struggled with my peers in school.

My classmates didn’t take kindly to the new kid from California. I was teased and physically bullied incessantly. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t fit in; there was no place where I felt like I belonged. I only had two friends, but even they were reluctant to eat with me during lunch or sit with me on the bus ride to and from school. Most of the time, I just sat by myself feeling sad and alone. I was experiencing extreme anxiety from being separated from my mother, and the emotional hurt I experienced from the kids at school reinforced my feelings of rejection, abandonment, fear, and shame. My grandparents did the best they could to love and console me, but it just wasn’t enough to ease my emotional trauma.

I moved back to Southern California to live with my mother and stepfather while I attended high school. I was good at basketball, and I made the summer league team before my freshman year. The coach replaced one of the starting players with me, which I thought would help me be accepted by my peers and find a place to belong. Sadly, it didn’t turn out that way: Most of the guys on the freshman team resented the fact that the coach played me more than their longtime friend. This situation intensified my feelings of rejection, abandonment, fear, and shame; these feelings seemed to follow me everywhere.

After graduating from high school, I lied about my age and took up bartending. For the next three years, I tended bar for yacht parties, corporate functions, and banquets at a gourmet restaurant near where I lived. During these years, I numbed my emotional pain with alcohol and sex, but any brief experience of relief was followed quickly by more guilt and shame. As a believer, I was in turmoil about my behavior; I knew without a doubt that what I was doing was wrong, but I wanted to numb my pain. I can remember times when I clearly sensed God’s loving presence and the invitation to turn away from my life of sin, but to no avail. I was stuck in a relentless cycle of sin and sorrow.

After a few years, my world came crashing down on me. The woman I was living with came home one night and told me she had just had an abortion. It seemed like a matter-of-fact decision for her, but I was devastated. The pain of the abortion drove us apart, and not long after, we split up, bringing my feelings of rejection, abandonment, fear, and shame to a tipping point.

One day I was walking alone on the beach, feeling a great sense of despair as I thought about how I had made such a mess of my life. I literally fell to my knees and cried out to God for help and forgiveness. It felt in that moment like God lowered a rope to help me out of my pit of despair. I recommitted my life to following Jesus and began my journey to becoming a pastor.

As I look back today, I realize that the mess I had made of my life had less to do with a hard and rebellious heart and more to do with a broken heart—damaged by years of emotional pain that fostered an intense longing to be loved. Obviously I had made sinful choices for which I was responsible, and those choices had produced grave consequences. Sinful choices are always a matter of free will, but they may be influenced by unresolved emotional pain and distorted thinking. They may be motivated by shame. Shame distorts your identity and undermines your sense of value as a person created in the image of God. People who live with deep shame feel defective and unworthy of love.

I am grateful for God’s mercy in my life. But even though God forgave my sin, he did not remove my distorted thinking nor the spiritual/emotional conflicts that followed me from my youth. Those feelings of rejection, abandonment, fear, and shame would not be addressed until years later, when I learned about Christ-formation.

What Is Christ-Formation?

In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul writes, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” Some scholars and church leaders refer to this process of transformation as progressive sanctification. Others describe it as spiritual formation, spiritual growth, or spiritual maturity. I prefer to use the term Christ-formation because it is more descriptive of what is taking place: We are becoming more like Christ.

To become more like Jesus Christ includes two lifelong experiences. First, it involves taking on facets of his character that are most easily identified as the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). It’s important to recognize that the fruit of the Spirit is singular, not plural. The first fruit of the Spirit is love; the by-product of this love is joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

This understanding of love as the fruit of the Spirit takes us to the second experience of Christ-formation: the abundant life. As we internalize the reality of God’s love in increasing measure, we will begin to experience a different quality of life—a life characterized by joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is the abundant life. The more we abide in Jesus’ love, the more like Jesus we will become and the more we will experience the abundant life.

In the next chapter, we will look at qualities of the abundant life and the lies that keep us from experiencing it.

Restoring My Soul with God

  1. How have you seen unresolved emotional pain hinder spiritual growth in others? How have you seen it affect your growth?

  2. In your own words, write out the problem this creates for following Christ:

  3. Circle all the emotions you have experienced in your life from the list below:

    Rejected

    Abandoned

    Sad

    Lonely

    Fearful

    Depressed

    Unpopular

    Envious

    Resentful

    Hateful

    Angry

    Regretful

    Spiteful

    Disappointed

    Devastated

    Inadequate

    Helpless

    Shamed

    Hopeless

    Guilty

    Worthless

    Humiliated

    Threatened

    Shocked

    Trapped

    Terrified

    Tense

    Tempted

    Anxious

    Furious

  4. Pair the above feelings to the situation that caused them and write out what happened as best as you can remember. Be as specific as possible: How old you were at the time, names of the people involved, where the situation occurred, who you have shared this experience with. Use a journal if needed.

  5. On a separate sheet of paper, make a list of all the major life events (positive and negative) you can remember under the age categories below:

    0–5 years old

    6–10 years old

    11–20 years old

    21–30 years old

    31–40 years old

    41–50 years old

    51–60 years old

    61–70 years old

    71–80 years old

    80+

Restoring My Soul with Others

  1. Does it surprise you that there is little statistical difference in the daily lives of believers and unbelievers? Why do you think so many believers continue to struggle with addictions?
  2. In keeping with the Reveal study referred to in this chapter, how do church programs help and hinder the Christ-formation process?
  3. How do you think emotional health contributes to spiritual growth?
  4. How would you describe the Christ-formation process? What is the goal of Christ-formation? How long does it take? How does it take place?
  5. As you think about your own painful life experiences, how have they helped or hindered your Christ-formation process?