What is it that truly troubles our heart?
Is this disturbance actually from God, to provoke us to flee religious compliance and carnal indulgence in favor of ecstatic union with the Trinity?

John 14

How do we sustainably enter into God's rest?  Is it by only doing what we see God doing?

Hebrews 4

What if the real war is not between "biblical" and "secular" culture, but "left-brain" WEIRD versus "right-brain" Traditional -- with neither actually on God's side?

Healing from “Childhood Emotional Neglect” (CEN)

Childhood Emotional Neglect (as a child or teen) results in emotional disconnect and lack of emotional intelligence.

In a marriage, one or both spouses may need healing from CEN
Spouses who need healing will often exhibit these 10 characteristics…

1. Misread each other's feelings.
2. Avoid discussing difficult topics to avoid conflict.
3. Be unable to argue productively.
4. Focus on logistics rather than feelings.
5. Not confide in each other.
6. React inappropriately if the other confides.
7. Not feel like a team.
8. Feel alone even with their spouse.
9. Have difficulty finding topics to discuss.
10. Feel awkward experiencing positive emotions like love, or only feel them during sex.

When children are emotionally neglected:
Children raised with emotional neglect:

1. Don't know how to express their emotions and don’t feel comfortable expressing their emotions (because they were not asked questions such as “How are you?,” “Are you sad?,” etc.).
2. Don't learn how to recognize and discuss emotions (others or their own)
3. Hide their emotions and may not be aware of them.
4. Do not understand themselves or their own needs or feelings (or others).

Are we lying to ourselves?
Will listening better to our Others help us find the truth?

* I Told Me So: Self-Deception and the Christian Life
* Living Fearless - Jamie Winship

Coming up on Feb 14: VaLENTine Men's Study

How do we prove to the world that we don't need the same things they want?

Warning: spoiler alert for Crazy Rich Asians.

See also 12/2 Tri-Quatrain: Choose to Lose

What if the true opposition to the gospel is hidden inside our own implicit assumptions about reality?

1. Identifying and confronting our emotional distress is essential for identifying our lack of alignment with the Father’s will.
2. For you, I believe that taking up *your* cross would require you to actively pursue becoming aware of and confronting the roots of your emotional distress, because you have become addicted to a superficial yielding that does not result in emotional catharsis or true intimacy.

I need to go now and do the exact same thing with MY wife (confront the roots of MY emotional distress).

Four Stages of Engagement.

1. Try to fix your problem 
2. Step back and let you fix it yourself
3. Incarnate into the tension beneath the problem
4. Demonstrate Christ's new victory

Does Jesus -- unlike Pharisees and philosophers -- require His disciples to sacrifice our "digital abstraction of self" in order to confront the emotional distress that lurks beneath?

Your impression is essentially correct, though perhaps not _quite_ as bad as you probably think...  

During most of the gospels, the disciples wanted a king who would destroy their enemies rather than a savior who would destroy their sin.

My Christ-less failure mode is trying to destroy your sin instead of [before] confronting my own.

Luke 9:18-26

• 22 And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
• 23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

Is a relationship with God about obeying His will or enjoying His presence?

Or something else entirely?