Damaged Emotions
Page Two
Effects of Damaged Emotions
Today's society is mass-producing a whole generation of psychologically unstable youth, who are soon to become parents. It would be impossible to note every type of emotional damage experienced in our society, but among the more common scars that can bring us to spiritual defeat and failure are:
Deep Inferiority Feelings. An inner, nagging sense that you are no good, that you'll never amount to anything, that no one could possibly ever love you, that everything you do is wrong: always a continual sense of anxiety and fear. When such a person becomes a Christian, he believes in God's love and forgiveness with only the conscious part of his mind. Very soon in his Christian life everything within his deep inner mind rises up to say that his new found forgiveness is false. His unconscious mind cries out, "Don't trust it! It's a lie! Don't cry out! Don't pray! There's really no one there to relieve your anxiety!"
 Because we live in a sinful, irrational,
and imperfect world, every one of us
comes to adult life with some
damaged areas in our personality.
What has happened? The Good News has not penetrated into that deep and damaged self. The deep feelings of inferiority have yet to experience the grace of God. They, too, must be evangelized; that, too, must be healed. Those deep scars of the subconscious mind must be touched by the rehabilitating love of Christ.
The Ghastly Perfectionist Complex—That inner feeling that no matter what you do, you can never achieve adequately. You never do enough; you are never able to please anybody, especially yourself. You are always groping, always striving, always feeling guilty, always driven by the terrible "tyranny of the ought." You are perpetually climbing but never arriving.
What happens to this compulsive perfectionist when he becomes a Christian? Tragically enough, he usually transfers his impossible goals to his relationship with God, who then becomes to him an ever-increasingly demanding tyrant. God is enthroned near the top of a ladder and the Christian with the perfectionist complex forever climbs. But when he approaches the top, God has moved up another rung. How difficult it is for such a person to place his complete trust in Jesus Christ and to rest in His love. How painful for him to try to receive victory in the Holy Spirit!
The Super-Sensitive Person who usually has been deeply hurt. He has reached out for love, approval and affection, but life has given him the opposite. Scars have developed deep inside. He sees things to which others are blind; he feels things to which others are insensitive. He is shattered by perfectly normal or accidental happenings. He feels that people are against him and he tends to interpret every casual happening in this light. He has to have constant reassurance. But he can never get enough.
Yet again, a super-sensitive person may react in just the opposite way we have been describing. Life has been cruel to him, so he gets tough and wants to hurt others as he has been hurt. He goes through life pushing people around, hurting, dominating, using money or authority or position or sex to prove himself. Does this affect his Christian life? Of course it does-deeply.
The Super-Sensitive person. usually
has been deeply hurt. He has reached
out for love, approval and affection, but
life has given him the opposite.
The Fearful Ones represent another type of emotionally-crippled people. They are filled with an overwhelming fear of failure. They are so afraid of losing the game that they take a simple way out-they never play the game! Or they may choose to sit on the sidelines and say, "I don't like the rules." Recently I was at a used car lot and a salesman drew my attention to a man who was walking among the cars kicking the tires. The salesman explained, "See him? He's a wheel-kicker. That kind comes here every day. They never buy a car; they never intend to. They just go around kicking the wheels, telling you 'this one's out-of-line'; or they lift the hood and report the engine is too noisy. We learn to spot 'wheel-kickers.' "
Fearful people simply cannot make a decision; they are paralyzed by the fear of making a wrong choice; they are obsessed with a fear of failure. Do these damaged people face difficulty in living the Christian life? Indeed they do. Decisions tear them apart; faith comes hard; sharing their faith is difficult. To launch out with the Holy Spirit is almost a traumatic experience. Self-discipline is not easy for them—they tell themselves that they would act if circumstances were right, but since the right circumstances never come, they seldom do anything. They live in a nebulous world of "if only's."
Finally, there is the whole area of sex that we must consider in relation to damaged personalities. Of course, sex has entered into the problems we have already dealt with, but it merits a specific mention. Paul, in writing to the Christians in Corinth, said that he was determined not to preach anything to them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.3 The epistle then deals with every kind of problem imaginable: quarrels, party-splits, court cases, property disputes; every kind of sex problem—incest, prostitution, premarital relations, post-marital relations, divorce and widowhood! Then follows words on dieting, vegetarianism, getting drunk at the love feasts, communion, speaking in tongues, death, funerals, taking up the collections, and the "every-member canvass!"
 Continued on Page Three
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