Navigating The Big Six Emotions

What are we to do when we encounter anger, fear, sadness, shame, disgust, and hopelessness.? These are our most uncomfortable moments. In difficult moment, we either ignore, succumb to, or stuff these are the emotions. But what if there is a better way? And what if, when we looked at Jesus, we noticed that he did not avoid any emotional expression? It is one facet of the Spirit of God to come alongside you and help you to become truly human, even in your worst moments.

Tune in as Josh and Ken dive in and talk about recovering from the big six.

For more about Wind Ministries, visit: https://www.windministries.ca/

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Transcript

00;00;02;02 - 00;00;21;17
Ken Hoffert
I.

00;00;21;20 - 00;00;43;01
Joshua Hoffert
When we. When we. When we are found by God. In that sense, all of a sudden, we start to see ourselves as part of the bigger picture. Actually, is telling a story in my life. And my life becomes important because it characterizes who he is. And so my actions actually matter.

00;00;43;03 - 00;00;54;09
Ken Hoffert
Right.

00;00;54;11 - 00;01;00;22
Ken Hoffert
Right.

00;01;00;24 - 00;01;01;14
Ken Hoffert
Hey, everybody.

00;01;01;14 - 00;01;33;28
Joshua Hoffert
And welcome to another episode of the Wind Ministries podcast. And, where we've been going through and talking about, spiritual maturity and spiritual health. we're calling this the Spiritual Maturity Series, where we're diving into topics and helping you understand what it looks like to become what it looks like to become spiritually mature. how we go about doing that and we're diving deep into the topic, at least we hope we are anyway.

00;01;34;00 - 00;01;40;27
Joshua Hoffert
And, there's people that can dive deeper than us. And so we're just throwing our, two bits out there.

00;01;40;28 - 00;01;43;15
Ken Hoffert
We're putting a pause in the in the water.

00;01;43;17 - 00;01;53;08
Joshua Hoffert
There you go. Yeah. That's right. And sometimes, you know, we have a couple of oars rowing along and sometimes we have. What is it? The is it, on by.

00;01;53;08 - 00;01;55;27
Ken Hoffert
The by the by the river itself?

00;01;55;29 - 00;02;09;28
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's right. Like a twig on the, and the, you know, mighty stream. Isn't that what they say? And, the John Candy and,

00;02;13;07 - 00;02;13;11
Ken Hoffert
yeah.

00;02;13;24 - 00;02;21;24
Joshua Hoffert
I, I'm trying to think of the planes, trains and automobiles just carried along like a twig on the, current of a mighty stream. Something you anyway.

00;02;21;25 - 00;02;23;20
Ken Hoffert
Watch that movie? Yeah. Time.

00;02;24;07 - 00;02;38;15
Joshua Hoffert
yes, I did watch that movie a lot when I was growing up. So, Yeah. anyway, my name is Joshua Hoffert. I'm the founder of Wind Ministries, and I am here with a very important person in my life.

00;02;38;17 - 00;02;40;19
Ken Hoffert
My dad. Hello.

00;02;40;22 - 00;02;48;26
Joshua Hoffert
Almost. You know, like, almost the most important if you think about my physical presence. So he's certainly.

00;02;49;01 - 00;02;50;00
Ken Hoffert
One of the one of the.

00;02;50;01 - 00;03;01;15
Joshua Hoffert
Four. Certainly pretty far up there. You know, without him, I wouldn't be here. So I'm kind of glad that he's here. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah. So, dad, how are things in Florida?

00;03;01;18 - 00;03;03;08
Ken Hoffert
Hot and humid.

00;03;03;14 - 00;03;05;22
Joshua Hoffert
How's the political climate in Florida?

00;03;05;22 - 00;03;13;06
Ken Hoffert
Well, they they have not allowed any protests to manifest. Outrageous.

00;03;13;06 - 00;03;14;13
Joshua Hoffert
Oh, yeah. That's right. Yeah.

00;03;14;13 - 00;03;21;23
Ken Hoffert
College campuses so that there hasn't. That's true. I don't know it depends on who you ask how the political climate is. yeah.

00;03;21;26 - 00;03;26;26
Joshua Hoffert
Well, the political climate everywhere is divisive, right? That's just all about you. All you could say. Yeah.

00;03;26;28 - 00;03;32;27
Ken Hoffert
And people either love what's going on or they hate it. That's like nothing to very little in between.

00;03;32;29 - 00;03;55;07
Joshua Hoffert
It's. Well, let's put it this way too, in the context of what we're talking about. It is the political climate in across the especially in Western countries right now. Yeah. I say that not to say that there's other countries that are not having political, division, division. It's just that we're in a Western country so we can we know very clearly what's happening here.

00;03;55;20 - 00;03;57;17
Ken Hoffert
it fits our view.

00;03;57;19 - 00;04;29;15
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's all I'm saying. It's not a it's it's not like. Oh, everywhere else is perfect. No, it it it is. The political climate is, rife with ripe and rife with ripe for taking advantage of people that that lack emotional and spiritual maturity. And, yeah, my wife had a dream a couple of years ago where, people had been organized into camps and the camps were, organized around the right left political divide.

00;04;29;17 - 00;04;55;04
Joshua Hoffert
And if you found anybody out and about in the other camp, it was like the Bloods and the Crips in LA. you just kill the other. It's there's no questions asked. You just slaughter anybody in the other camp. And, both camps were just as bad and actually, in the dream, she knew that this was all orchestrated by demonic powers, and the demons did not care what camp you were in.

00;04;55;06 - 00;05;19;06
Joshua Hoffert
They couldn't care less about what camp you were in. All they cared about was that you went to a camp because they knew if you went to a camp, they could just control everybody. And, and then there was a third distant camp that represented the Christian camp. And, and it was the most well guarded camp you weren't allowed into the camp unless you went through a process of forgiveness and repentance.

00;05;19;09 - 00;05;49;07
Joshua Hoffert
And it was all about, staying in the camp was all about loving one another. And I thought that was a, you know, quite a, descriptive dream and a predictive dream. and, and so when, when all that to say, when we lack emotional and spiritual maturity, it's very easy to be swayed by the rhetoric that happens around politics, around religion, around family, around all these kind of things.

00;05;49;10 - 00;05;49;16
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;05;49;19 - 00;06;02;14
Ken Hoffert
Well, you know, and it's easier when you're walking in emotional health and integrity. it's, it's harder to be offended by.

00;06;02;16 - 00;06;21;20
Joshua Hoffert
Exactly, exactly. And the fence is what drives right is what drives the division. Yeah. And that puts up the walls. That creates the chasm. And I further put myself in this camp over against the other camp, regardless of where it is. And that's what the fascinating thing about the dream, I thought, was the the demonic powers did not care what they were.

00;06;21;23 - 00;06;22;16
Ken Hoffert
And why would they?

00;06;22;16 - 00;06;40;00
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, yeah. And both camps are going to claim an allegiance to a Christian vision, whether it's for the migrants and the refugees, or whether it's for the, the, aborted babies in the womb or whatever, you know, you've got you've got a Christian appeal on both sides.

00;06;40;00 - 00;06;44;00
Ken Hoffert
Oh, I knew you raised up a flag. And there becomes your symbol and everybody. Exactly.

00;06;44;01 - 00;06;45;05
Joshua Hoffert
Rally around.

00;06;45;07 - 00;06;51;09
Ken Hoffert
The flag stands for all you know, it's it's. Yeah, it we watch it happen every day, I guess.

00;06;51;09 - 00;06;53;15
Joshua Hoffert
Welcome to the political podcast.

00;06;53;19 - 00;06;55;23
Ken Hoffert
Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. This won't help.

00;06;55;23 - 00;07;10;00
Joshua Hoffert
Us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did have a friend tell me, today he's like, you know, it seems like you could just. As long as you say something about Donald Trump, your you can get your video or your podcast to go viral and that's.

00;07;10;02 - 00;07;11;07
Ken Hoffert
To the good or ill.

00;07;11;08 - 00;07;50;09
Joshua Hoffert
So, yeah. To the good or to the old. Yeah. So there we go. Trump, Trump, Trump, Biden, Biden, Biden. All right everybody do your work. algorithms pick us up. well, all that to say, actually, I was leading somewhere with that is, one of the things that we've talked about in the last two episodes, this being our third episode in this series is, emotional maturity and spiritual maturity, and, and we've, we kind of we throw those term we've talked about how does it happen, what is a spiritual maturity being a the capacity to be yourself in connection with the father when you go through life's difficult circumstances that essentially embody what

00;07;50;09 - 00;08;12;23
Joshua Hoffert
Jesus is like and that we can we we think that we stumble into it, but we actually discover the right factors that produces it. Right? And, and, and I think there's been there's almost an interchangeability between the language of emotional maturity and spiritual maturity. And so I thought we'd start off this episode talking about the differences between the two.

00;08;12;26 - 00;08;28;22
Joshua Hoffert
Okay. And just kind of clarifying when we say when we say spiritual maturity, we say emotional maturity, we don't mean exactly the same thing, but we do mean, we do have in mind the kind of person in which those things overlap. When we say.

00;08;28;22 - 00;08;50;23
Ken Hoffert
That. Well, and we should probably mention that, it's almost ubiquitous everywhere that so many Christians believe that, they will if you ask them, what is a human being? They'll tell you about body, soul, spirit body, soul, spirit.

00;08;50;25 - 00;08;51;24
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, I'm sure that's the.

00;08;51;28 - 00;08;52;25
Ken Hoffert
That's the answer.

00;08;52;27 - 00;08;57;18
Joshua Hoffert
Or if they really get it right, it'll be spirit, soul, body because it's the new age guys. You say body, soul, spirit.

00;08;57;18 - 00;08;59;20
Ken Hoffert
That's true.

00;08;59;22 - 00;09;02;02
Joshua Hoffert
That's what I know. They'll say that that's true.

00;09;02;10 - 00;09;08;17
Ken Hoffert
But if you read, People who are.

00;09;08;19 - 00;09;13;28
Joshua Hoffert
By the way, that's also very much the in the evangelical yes world.

00;09;13;28 - 00;09;14;12
Ken Hoffert
Yes.

00;09;14;14 - 00;09;17;08
Joshua Hoffert
And when you're Orthodox and Catholic guys wouldn't answer the same way.

00;09;17;09 - 00;09;18;02
Ken Hoffert
No, they would not.

00;09;18;04 - 00;09;19;10
Joshua Hoffert
So no, they would not.

00;09;19;10 - 00;09;27;00
Ken Hoffert
And and then you have people like, Dallas Willard who addresses that so. Well and. Yeah. And in.

00;09;27;02 - 00;09;28;00
Joshua Hoffert
Renovation of the heart and.

00;09;28;00 - 00;09;43;18
Ken Hoffert
Renovation of the heart, and I, I would encourage people to read that because it does directly address that faulty concept of what a you I should let me let me know, say, I don't want to say faulty. Let me say it's a limiting concept.

00;09;43;18 - 00;09;43;29
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, yeah.

00;09;44;03 - 00;10;05;28
Ken Hoffert
For sure. Truly. Yes, yes. And I like how he does it. He expands it to like seven different areas where. Yeah, you got you know, you have, emotions, you know, what is a human being? A human being is relationship. A human being is, you know, so he goes through a list of about seven different, capacities or, or components that.

00;10;05;28 - 00;10;15;25
Ken Hoffert
Right, that, that make up what it means to be human. more so than just saying, well, we are spirit, soul, body.

00;10;15;27 - 00;10;17;04
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. And we will.

00;10;17;04 - 00;10;19;14
Ken Hoffert
I think that's important to to it.

00;10;19;14 - 00;10;58;00
Joshua Hoffert
Is we might talk about that more in this episode, or we might do a future episode prop dressing. yeah. because it is a big topic, that I think one of the things that happens is, the in regards to that, I'll just say this, a lot of that frame of reference comes from Watchmen, the Jesse Penn Lewis, these some of these authors that wrote in the early 1900s, late 1800s or early 1900s and court and and Watchmen, Nia's book, The Spiritual Man, he codified the whole thing out very, very, systematically.

00;10;58;02 - 00;11;18;29
Joshua Hoffert
And, and, you know, he has some really good things to say in that sense. Right? It it's just the thing that I've been struck with now in, in retros, I read the spiritual man ten, 15 years ago. But the thing that strikes me today is, you know, the Bible is just not that concerned with categorizing things. So, so specifically.

00;11;19;00 - 00;11;22;10
Ken Hoffert
It's just we're about telling you the story that you need.

00;11;22;12 - 00;11;49;13
Joshua Hoffert
It is it's not. And then and so what happens though, the reason the spiritual body thing gets limiting is because it imposes Moses a rule of interpretation on the scriptures, that the scriptures don't offer itself. And and so you're like, oh, okay. Anyway, so emotional health and spiritual health, emotional maturity and spiritual maturity, I'm going to throw a couple things out there and then get your thoughts with that.

00;11;49;13 - 00;12;18;08
Joshua Hoffert
So when we and the difference between the two. Okay. and so I'll say emotional health and spiritual health, we'll start there. Okay. emotional health would basically be defined as the ability to be yourself in the midst of difficult emotions. That would essentially when we talk about emotional health, that's that's basically what we mean is when you experience fear, you don't lose sight of who you are.

00;12;18;08 - 00;12;21;14
Ken Hoffert
It it's not that you don't experience fear, it's that when exactly.

00;12;21;14 - 00;12;33;04
Joshua Hoffert
Very emotional health is not the the absence of, difficult emotions. It's that emotion, a difficult emotions don't control the expression of who you are.

00;12;33;04 - 00;12;34;06
Ken Hoffert
Yeah, and I like that. That's good.

00;12;34;07 - 00;13;03;05
Joshua Hoffert
Oh, that's emotional health. And that's what we mean when we say that. Right. And and you can have emotional health without having spiritual health through that. Largely that happens because people either put in a lot of personal work. They understand their family of origin, they understand, the story of their life, where they've come from. They've had other people that are farther along than them that show them how to be an emotionally mature person, the glean and learn from others.

00;13;03;07 - 00;13;13;13
Joshua Hoffert
And they and they have. So they've been given the right resources and so people can be emotionally healthy and not emotionally healthy and not spiritually healthy. In that.

00;13;13;13 - 00;13;14;10
Ken Hoffert
Sense. That's true.

00;13;15;09 - 00;13;45;01
Joshua Hoffert
and so spiritual health then, I would define as being aware of the father's affection, tenderness and disposition towards you. Okay. And, at any given time, it doesn't mean that you're always consciously, you know, you're cognizant of his affection, but it means you're aware that he has an affection for you, that he has a favorable disposition towards you, and that he is tender towards his children and that you fall into that category.

00;13;45;03 - 00;14;01;03
Joshua Hoffert
So you understand that in a in a, experiential sense, on a, on a periodic basis, and you understand that on a, just on a practical sense that that's what the Bible describes is his tender mercies are renewed every morning. Right. What would the.

00;14;01;03 - 00;14;04;08
Ken Hoffert
Outworking of that look like, do you think?

00;14;04;11 - 00;14;30;11
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Well, the, the outworking of that can help to produce emotional health. and because it, it your, your capacity to carry yourself is carried by God. But the outworking of it is I see more of what he's like and in seeing so here's, here's, here's the outworking of I'll go back to, an example in Scripture that I think is really pertinent in that sense.

00;14;31;01 - 00;14;58;22
Joshua Hoffert
when, when Nathan prophesies over David. Okay, okay. And, and talks about the, the, all the potential for David's life. Right. God, you've said I'll build your house. God is saying he's going to build you a house. Right? And he shares the perspective of the father on David. Right? You I went what you went with, you went. And you did even realize I was with you all this stuff that happens in, there's two narratives, of course, in, in Chronicles and in Kings.

00;14;58;22 - 00;15;27;11
Joshua Hoffert
Right. Where the prophecy. So they're different actually, in both narratives. So the prophetic word changes between the two, which is interesting. anyway, food for thought. But, but so there's all these things that God says, I'm going to use, I'm going to build the, house. I'm going to build you establish your name, all these things. And the the first thing that David says in response to the revelation of who God is and what he intends to do with David, is what kind of man am I that you would look upon me?

00;15;27;13 - 00;15;52;16
Joshua Hoffert
Okay, so here's the first thing he says in response to the revelation of God's tender affection for David is David recognizes something about himself. He starts to see himself more clearly and authentically, so, so every time. And because God, this man, we may be getting a little too philosophical here, but let me say this because God is the essence of pure being, all right?

00;15;52;16 - 00;16;25;04
Joshua Hoffert
We have a being. He is being. Whenever you come into contact with being, your being is illuminated. So you can't help but understand yourself more that Augustine codified it in a in a very classic formula when he prayed in the confessions, Lord, teach me to know my son. Teach me to know you, that I might know myself. So being aware of the of the the father's affection, tenderness, and disposition towards you is one it it brings this inner solidity to you.

00;16;25;04 - 00;16;44;02
Joshua Hoffert
Because, you know, like when I, when I in my in my home, when my, when I'm there. My wife has said this a number of times to me when I am present, it brings peace to the home, because we know that there's a stability that we can rely on. So father does that brings a stability we can rely on and it brings a peace to who we are.

00;16;44;02 - 00;17;15;21
Joshua Hoffert
Also, when I come in contact with the father, I also come into contact with myself. So I begin to know myself more because I know him. but not just know myself in the sense that I am in contact with where I've come from, but I'm actually in contact with who I've come from. And, and so I, I know not I know myself as a human being that I'm part of this large story, that I know my origin is in him, my origin, not in the sense of my family.

00;17;15;23 - 00;17;38;15
Joshua Hoffert
There I get a much bigger picture of my place in human history when I see him. And, so, so, spiritual health, awareness of him, inner stability. Because I, I know someone is there taking care of me and I can someone is there I can rely on that is always reliable and faithful. I understand myself more because when I come into contact with him, I can't help but come into contact with myself.

00;17;38;23 - 00;17;50;15
Joshua Hoffert
and I see, I see myself as part of something much bigger than, just the kind of, dull drama of everyday life. So that's what I would say to that one.

00;17;50;15 - 00;18;26;02
Ken Hoffert
I, I would imagine, you know, for as, as, Christian. So we, we kind of have this idea, like, for example, coming out of Eden. So we have a narrative of. Yes, for humanity. So how what are our origins as a, as human beings? And. Yeah. And so with the Christians, use we, we have a story that we tell, I believe it's a true story, but I mean, you know, it's also a story.

00;18;26;02 - 00;18;55;29
Ken Hoffert
It's a narrative to help us understand what it means to be a human and how humans, what humans are about. And, and one of the things you see in this ideal, place we call Eden is that humans, man and woman, are walking about unfettered it with the creator. Yeah. And there is no and there's no dissonance in there, right and right.

00;18;55;29 - 00;19;07;16
Ken Hoffert
And so emotional and spiritual health is a is it has a lack of dissonance from who you really are and how and how you're connected. Yeah.

00;19;07;18 - 00;19;23;09
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. that's that's a really good way of saying that. There's a when you, when you come to know him and you're walking with him in terms of him being the father, dissonance dissipates.

00;19;23;15 - 00;19;25;01
Ken Hoffert
Oh that's good. Yeah.

00;19;25;03 - 00;19;46;23
Joshua Hoffert
Right. Yeah. Dissonance dissipates. Dissonance is. And we could, you know, now we're having to define all our terms when we say the Bible is not interest in defining terms dissonant. Well, we'll say dissonance is the, characterized as the vague, unsettling feeling of not quite belonging fitting in or just feeling off. We could define it that way.

00;19;46;23 - 00;20;07;11
Joshua Hoffert
Right? It's essentially what happens when you believe things about the nature of reality, including yourself, who you truly are. You believe things about yourself and reality that aren't true or don't line up with how reality actually is. And so dissonance could be, well, I think I'm a good and loving person, but I actually lash out at all the people around me.

00;20;07;13 - 00;20;26;04
Joshua Hoffert
And so I see myself one way and I live another way. And so the intersection between those points is dissonance, because I always have friction with the people around me. And and so I now I'm not I don't the what I think about myself and how I live. And this is a simple example, but how I think about myself and how I live are two totally different things.

00;20;26;04 - 00;20;47;19
Joshua Hoffert
And I have to square those beliefs with each other, and I can't. And so actually, in Western civilization, because of the, the, the freight, the framework and the foundation of how the Western mind thinks, and we've become very adept at that because we can't separate the way we think from the way we live. Right? That well, we are our thoughts.

00;20;47;19 - 00;20;48;29
Joshua Hoffert
We aren't our actions.

00;20;48;29 - 00;21;03;04
Ken Hoffert
We have a box for this. We have a box for that. Exactly. We don't have to let those boxes touch each other. We respect. That's right. Use this. We use this part over here. And yeah, we're very good at separating ourselves from ourselves.

00;21;03;06 - 00;21;28;06
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah that's right. Yeah. That's absolutely right. so and there's a lot you know, there's obviously a lot we could say to the foundations of, our, our Western worldview and, going back to platonic philosophy and all this stuff, we might actually do a whole episode on, the into the, the intersection of worldview and, spiritual maturity.

00;21;28;06 - 00;21;50;29
Joshua Hoffert
Because spiritual maturity will always challenge your worldview. and, it has to because it has to change how you perceive who God is, which is the essence of reality and how you perceive yourself, which is how you are, intersecting with the nature of reality. So you're worthy always is challenged with when you as you grow spiritually.

00;21;51;01 - 00;21;59;14
Ken Hoffert
It's kind of, it's kind of a centers around that thought of, how do I fit into this story?

00;21;59;16 - 00;22;02;22
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Yes. That's right. Yeah. Let's, you know, how.

00;22;02;22 - 00;22;04;14
Ken Hoffert
Do I live in this story?

00;22;04;17 - 00;22;26;01
Joshua Hoffert
I've told this story a bunch of different times in different ways. So I'll make it brief. I, I woke up one morning, went downstairs and was and was I put my chair downstairs. This is a few summers ago. I was praying Finley, my son, he he gets up after me. He's usually the other early riser in the house, and he goes outside to play, and he's got a sword.

00;22;26;07 - 00;22;50;21
Joshua Hoffert
And I hear him, it's like 7:00 Am, you know, at this point. And and he's unfettered imagination. He's calling out, this phrase, where are you, monkey Queen? Yeah. And he's been playing this game for a couple of days. Right. The the monkey Queen was this dastardly figure who was sometimes imaginary, was sometimes the next door neighbor, one of the kids in the neighborhood.

00;22;50;28 - 00;23;09;13
Joshua Hoffert
It's always someone different, right? But he's always fighting against the monkey Queen. So he's going around looking for the monkey Queen to vanquish his foe. And I realized that to Findlay, he's immersed in the story, right? He sees himself as the hero. He's got the sword. He's out to charge a villain. He's going to slay this thing, and he's going to conquer the world.

00;23;09;15 - 00;23;26;29
Joshua Hoffert
And, and and I was so proud of him, you know, as a he was probably six when this was when he was doing this. Yeah, maybe, maybe even five. And it was just beautiful to watch. Right. This boy engaging with life in such a creative way. And, and I realize that something happens to us as we grow up that we don't see ourselves as the hero in a story anymore.

00;23;26;29 - 00;23;47;28
Joshua Hoffert
Like we lose track of the narrative. We're just a side player who doesn't really matter when we when we when we are found by God. In that sense, all of a sudden we start to see ourselves as part of the bigger picture. Actually, he's telling a story through my life, and my life becomes important because it it characterizes who he is.

00;23;48;01 - 00;24;09;05
Joshua Hoffert
And so my actions actually matter. Right? And so sometimes we've talked about this where part of the some of the redemptive models that we find in contemporary Christianity is that, well, just say a prayer and hold on to the end, because eventually you're going to escape this poor, pitiful world anyway, which has nothing to do with Christianity. No, that has nothing to do with Christianity.

00;24;09;05 - 00;24;39;08
Joshua Hoffert
But your actions actually matter because you embody the face of the creator on this earth, right? That you actually get to show forth what he's like and he's chosen you as an ambassador to do that. Right. And that might actually have we might have lasting ramifications in that life of the age to come, not just the life here and now, but lasting ramifications about who I am and and what happens to me in, in the ultimate, you know, redemption of all things.

00;24;39;08 - 00;24;47;07
Joshua Hoffert
Right. We've got a whole contingent of people that follow the devil into the lake of fire because they don't want have anything to do with God that's lasting ramifications.

00;24;47;10 - 00;24;53;16
Ken Hoffert
I mean, that's what I was saying. He says, don't you don't you know that you're a temple? Yeah. And there's.

00;24;53;16 - 00;24;54;23
Joshua Hoffert
Something about you that's really.

00;24;54;23 - 00;25;29;05
Ken Hoffert
Impairing a presence and an essence. Yeah. That transforms the world and and brings you back to being a whole human being. Yeah. Bring us back to your topic of, being a whole human being is emotional. health is. And spiritual health is that capacity of being a whole human being without, the I should say it this way the healthier we are, the less separation we have within ourselves.

00;25;29;07 - 00;25;42;02
Ken Hoffert
And we. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, we are at peace with ourselves. And peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the the presence of something that, is is harmony.

00;25;42;05 - 00;25;42;14
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;25;42;14 - 00;26;04;20
Ken Hoffert
That's right. Peace is harmony. It's what Jesus said to us. My peace I give to you is not like the peace the world gives. It's not just an absence of of conflict. It's that I am in harmony both with myself and with the father. I know who I am, right? And I know who I walk with and and he said, and I'm giving that to you as a gift.

00;26;04;22 - 00;26;05;10
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's.

00;26;05;10 - 00;26;35;17
Ken Hoffert
So when we come into this relationship, with the creator through Jesus, then the process naturally should be that we become more emotionally healthy and spiritually healthy. Yeah, because we become more harmonious inside. It's the point of the spirit, right, that I'll give you also your friends that's going to walk with you and show you everything that that the father and I are talking about.

00;26;35;22 - 00;26;50;25
Ken Hoffert
yeah. So that you are part of that connection. You're now not leaving you out of my connection. I mean, I'm engaging you, bring you into my connection so you can be so my peace can grow in you and I, you know? So anyway, I'm just going. Okay, well, I'm.

00;26;50;27 - 00;27;15;08
Joshua Hoffert
You're making me think. You're making me think of a comment that a good friend of ours made. Ron Huxley a is a licensed, family marriage therapist in California. Yeah. And just a just a wonderful, counselor friend and, just an awesome guy. but he was saying us. Yeah, all around. Because. Because when we talk about emotional maturity that you can you.

00;27;15;08 - 00;27;36;09
Joshua Hoffert
But someone can have emotional maturity and not have spiritual or emotional health and not have spiritual health. Right. that because you can be given like, like Ron would say, you can be given tools for dealing with anxiety in your life. Here's some ways to respond to anxiety. It could be simply simple breath exercises to help you manage anxiety when it comes.

00;27;36;09 - 00;27;56;14
Joshua Hoffert
Right. And so now there's a diminishment of anxiety. And I can actually I have tools to recover myself. Right. it can be focusing on a memory. It can be, thinking about someone who loves me. You know, there can be simple ways of, of doing that, to, to recover yourself and, be able to wade through difficult emotions.

00;27;56;14 - 00;28;11;03
Joshua Hoffert
Right. The, the emotional health that that but you can't and so, so you can have spiritual health without having emotional health. And the emotional health that comes because of spiritual health is not the same thing. It is not the same thing.

00;28;11;03 - 00;28;11;19
Ken Hoffert
Yeah.

00;28;11;22 - 00;28;47;02
Joshua Hoffert
It's a it is it, it's derived. It can, it can on the surface it can look very similar, but it's derived from a different process. It's not because you have the right tools to navigate every emotional situation. You may have those, but it's because the presence of peace has become so normal to you and that. And so now when that, when that, that chaos starts to or that, disintegrating emotional experience starts happening, you go, something is wrong about how I see myself in relation to God.

00;28;47;02 - 00;29;06;08
Joshua Hoffert
And now I need to and I need to question that and resolve that and bring myself back to attachment with him. So the emotional health that results from spiritual health is different than the emotional health that results from just having good therapeutic tools. But on the on the surface level, it may look the same because it's it is a diminishment.

00;29;06;15 - 00;29;13;23
Joshua Hoffert
We could say this emotional maturity is an ongoing diminishment of disintegrating emotions controlling your behavior.

00;29;13;26 - 00;29;14;12
Ken Hoffert
Yeah.

00;29;14;15 - 00;29;40;06
Joshua Hoffert
And, and you, you can derive that from various different ways, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you are spiritually healthy and vibrant, connected with the father. Part of it is, when and when we say you can't have spiritual health without having emotional health is because part when we define spiritual health as an awareness of the father's affection, tenderness and disposition towards you.

00;29;40;09 - 00;29;57;05
Joshua Hoffert
And I would say that spiritual maturity is an ongoing increase of that thing on a daily basis. right. You know, we know what he's like. We can communicate what he's like. We know what kind of lessons he's teaching us, what things that we're gleaning from him, and what things we're learning about him. And I am from us.

00;29;57;05 - 00;30;20;04
Joshua Hoffert
That would be spiritual maturity. The ongoing fruit of that, is is spiritual health without emotional health mistakes, what God is like for what my emotions are like, and so when I don't have emotional health, I can't have spiritual health because I will always. So I may experience shame, and I have no way of recovering myself from shame.

00;30;20;04 - 00;30;41;26
Joshua Hoffert
And I will, I can, and this is a simple example, but people do. This is then I think God is actually angry with me because of my experience of shame. And so now my emotions have dictated how I've seen him. So I don't have spiritual health because now I'm disconnected from him based on my emotions. And so I can't have a a spiritually vibrant and healthy connection with him without emotional health as well.

00;30;42;03 - 00;30;46;11
Ken Hoffert
So I try to avoid all of those emotions so that they so that they don't make me.

00;30;46;12 - 00;30;47;07
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Exactly.

00;30;47;07 - 00;30;47;24
Ken Hoffert
Right.

00;30;47;26 - 00;30;48;18
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, exactly.

00;30;48;18 - 00;30;59;14
Ken Hoffert
Or I take drugs or I, I do whatever I want. Yeah. Those things somehow. Yeah. Oh yes. Yeah. So what is, what are the emotions that, that, that tend to stick out.

00;30;59;16 - 00;31;23;15
Joshua Hoffert
So, so the big we call them the big six emotions and and different people identify these differently. You know a lot of what we've been, studying and been influenced by have been the life model guys. And so this is the big six emotions according to Jim Wilder and company. And, and and you would find a similar set of emotions from, even secular therapists and stuff like that.

00;31;23;15 - 00;31;29;12
Joshua Hoffert
Right. Because these are germane to humanity. They're not like, well, these are only Christians, right?

00;31;29;13 - 00;31;31;02
Ken Hoffert
Where these emotions.

00;31;31;04 - 00;32;00;20
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, yeah. So the, the big six emotions are anger, fear, sadness, shame, disgust and hopelessness. Those are, the, the and when we say, I'll say disintegrating, I don't mean disintegrating as in disappearing. Dis integrating. Right. There's a hyphen between the dis and the integrating is that they cause me to, to lose touch with myself, with my community, and with ultimately, God the Father.

00;32;00;27 - 00;32;04;19
Joshua Hoffert
So I'm not integrated with my community, myself and God. I'm disintegrating.

00;32;04;19 - 00;32;06;08
Ken Hoffert
So what are those again? Those six.

00;32;06;11 - 00;32;09;08
Joshua Hoffert
So. So we have anger. Okay.

00;32;09;21 - 00;32;12;06
Ken Hoffert
fear. Okay. Shame.

00;32;12;08 - 00;32;14;17
Joshua Hoffert
Shame disgust.

00;32;14;18 - 00;32;24;24
Ken Hoffert
Okay. Disgust. Sadness. Sadness and hopelessness. Hopelessness. Okay. yes. And those and those can be overwhelming.

00;32;24;26 - 00;32;57;28
Joshua Hoffert
Oh, for sure. And and you know, someone who anyone that is experiencing, the, the epidemic of anxiety and depression today are experiencing those emotions easily, and they're overwhelmed by those emotions. And, and, and a lot of the reasons why people continue early experience anxiety and depression is unresolved. well, we'll talk about this later, but unresolved in another episode, trauma A and trauma B, trauma of neglect and trauma of intent.

00;32;58;01 - 00;32;59;01
Joshua Hoffert


00;32;59;04 - 00;33;00;15
Ken Hoffert
That that when.

00;33;00;15 - 00;33;06;11
Joshua Hoffert
We're still responding to the bear charging down at us, basically. And so, so,

00;33;06;13 - 00;33;08;19
Ken Hoffert
These are 30 years ago.

00;33;08;22 - 00;33;42;07
Joshua Hoffert
Even those 30 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. We'll talk more about that. We're going to dive into all that stuff later. So but those are the big six emotions that when we experience them, they have the potential to disconnect us from ourselves. Like I mean how like disconnecting from ourselves. I was just listening to a friend tell me a story about a, a a meeting in a, a leadership meeting where, tensions frayed, people said things, and one of the members lashed out in anger.

00;33;42;10 - 00;34;03;05
Joshua Hoffert
And later came back to my friend who was leading the meeting and said, I, I don't know what happens to me. I have a problem and it overwhelms me. And then I realized later, I shouldn't have done that. Right. Well, this is the this is this is a big six emotion of anger, right? Right. It overwhelms me. And now I'm disconnected from myself.

00;34;03;05 - 00;34;21;28
Joshua Hoffert
And when I reflect later, I wish I wouldn't have said that thing because I lost sight of who I am. And I realized that's not how I see myself. Right? So now we have dissonance, because how I see myself and how I acted don't no longer actually match what I believe about myself. Well, I'm a loving person, but I just yelled at all those people.

00;34;22;00 - 00;34;37;16
Joshua Hoffert
Okay, well, I've got a it's incongruous between what I believe and how I live and and I can't help but generate dissonance when that happens. This vague, unsettling feeling that something's wrong with me. And because something is right, what I believe and what I do isn't that isn't lining up.

00;34;37;16 - 00;35;01;15
Ken Hoffert
If I get angry and in a way that is that isn't healthy. Yeah. Because, I mean, I think there's some ways that anger can be healthy. But yeah, but if I get angry and I'm not and it's not healthy, I'm just angry because I'm angry. Something has spirit, in me. Things that I just want to go away, I want to make right.

00;35;01;15 - 00;35;24;22
Ken Hoffert
I don't want to hurt them or I want them or I want to run from them somehow. Right then that makes me that makes me so focused on that emotion of that anger that I no longer see myself. I see the the emotion more prominent in how and and it's driving me now in, in how I make choices and how I interact with other people and that sort of thing.

00;35;24;22 - 00;35;26;12
Ken Hoffert
Is that what you're talking about?

00;35;26;14 - 00;35;46;02
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. And you know what's even what, just a just a hammer at home. Even more is, in, in the, In the ancient world, which we like talking about a lot, all of those, all of those big emotions were embodied by gods. Every one of.

00;35;46;02 - 00;35;47;04
Ken Hoffert
Them were.

00;35;47;04 - 00;36;08;07
Joshua Hoffert
Embodied by God. We personified them. Right. So that's all the anger stands in front of me, and I can't see anything. But the anger will. That became Mars, the god of war, right? And so every every big emotion is personified in a literal figure in the old world. Yeah. Right. So. Right. And, and we still we still have those things embodied.

00;36;08;10 - 00;36;13;16
Joshua Hoffert
Right? Like, like, I mean, just think about it. Here's we'll just get back to Donald Trump.

00;36;13;18 - 00;36;16;13
Ken Hoffert
Right? Okay. Yeah. Because we got to keep the algorithm up here. Yeah.

00;36;16;13 - 00;36;24;23
Joshua Hoffert
We gotta get the algorithm up right. Like like people celebrate when he lashes out in anger at the people that attack him, right? He becomes the literal.

00;36;25;18 - 00;36;27;14
Ken Hoffert
there's so little. Right? They say, oh, yeah.

00;36;27;14 - 00;36;29;01
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;36;29;01 - 00;36;32;00
Ken Hoffert
Yeah. I get like, there's, I.

00;36;32;03 - 00;36;53;13
Joshua Hoffert
I, he has every right to lash out at the people who are attacking him. I'm not saying that. I'm saying we, we still personify the force of anger in a person and then celebrate it. Right. So we're doing the same stuff. Human beings have not stopped doing. The personification of these disintegrating emotions in a figure in front of us.

00;36;53;16 - 00;37;17;12
Joshua Hoffert
Right. And then they become they become idols to us. So, so anger and anger. You know, anger is characterized by, the way you get flush in the face, literally. And you and you can't see or think of anything else. Right? We'd see the, the the kind of, metaphors you're seeing. Red. Right? Yeah. When someone's seeing red, that's all they can see.

00;37;17;12 - 00;37;38;13
Joshua Hoffert
That's the only lens they can see. I had a dream a long time ago, actually, when I was really dealing with deep seated anger issues where everywhere I looked, I just had a red film, and the Lord was showing me. You've got a lens of anger. You see things through, So anyway, so then you've got, and, fear, right?

00;37;38;13 - 00;38;02;04
Joshua Hoffert
Fear would be the, the paralyzing feeling that I don't know what to do. I don't know how to respond. I don't know what to say. Right. I either would characterize in a fight or flight, that anger is really going to be more your fight response. Fear is going to be your flight response. Is I or your freeze response, I either run or I just shrink.

00;38;02;07 - 00;38;25;21
Joshua Hoffert
And and we know, you know, in in human relationships, in, in, in a disintegrating way, there are people that use anger to control people through their, making people feel small. I use my anger to make people feel small, makes me feel powerful. And, you know, that just seems to just fly as normal, especially in a lot of leadership structures and leadership teams.

00;38;25;21 - 00;38;46;08
Joshua Hoffert
You get the angriest person, sees the most results because they scare everybody into submission. that's a whole other thing, though. That's not, you know, sadness, right? That kind of listlessness with seeing the world through that lens of gray where I'm just kind of always melancholy and I can't seem to, the, with the pressure.

00;38;46;08 - 00;38;47;29
Ken Hoffert
Or the lot of sadness. Is that what you're saying?

00;38;47;29 - 00;39;10;07
Joshua Hoffert
It's depression would fly out of sadness. But people that are depressed also feel anger. They get angry at people around them. Right? Anger is very, very common for someone who's depressed. but yes, the the actually the, the Desert Fathers had a particular term that they would use for the kind of melancholy sadness, and I can't that was, it was the acid is what it is.

00;39;10;07 - 00;39;32;02
Joshua Hoffert
Acidity. Acidity that just that listlessness that comes over you where you don't have the energy to rise up and do anything else. Right? And, I'm just down. So sadness, shame. You know, everybody's felt shame. I've done something wrong. I don't want to be. Most of the time, I don't want to be discovered. And so I try and hide what I've done.

00;39;32;02 - 00;39;32;29
Ken Hoffert
Me. Don't see me.

00;39;33;04 - 00;39;51;20
Joshua Hoffert
Don't look at me. I don't want to be seen. I'm afraid that someone will see what I've done. And I'm ashamed of what I've done. Disgust. The churning in your. The churning in your stomach. It's something you've seen or something that's been done to you. And hopelessness. Just the the nothing is ever going to get better.

00;39;51;25 - 00;39;52;16
Ken Hoffert
Yeah.

00;39;52;18 - 00;39;57;27
Joshua Hoffert
And it's it's never going to change. I'm going to be stuck in this place for forever.

00;39;57;28 - 00;40;09;26
Ken Hoffert
So people get and people are listening to us, probably struggle with those things. 1 or 2 of them or all of them. yeah. On any given day. Yeah.

00;40;09;28 - 00;40;31;04
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Oh, dead for sure. That can actually absolutely be the case. Yes. Well, that's why we're doing the whole series, right. We're going through why what. So we're talking about the big six emotions trying to define them, define what experiencing them is like. Define how we how we're to think about them, how they integrate with our emotional and spiritual health.

00;40;31;06 - 00;40;53;09
Joshua Hoffert
We're we're going to talk about why they're present. Yeah. And we're going to talk about what to do with them. That's not necessarily the scope of this particular. Right. We're we're still kind of laying out theory of understanding these types of things. so and, you know, one of the other things is the presence of these emotions are not a bad thing.

00;40;53;12 - 00;41;10;23
Joshua Hoffert
They're not a they're just it's just it if you can if you can resolve to convince yourself, it's not necessarily an easy one. But if you can resolve to convince yourself that the big six emotions are simply data telling you something about yourself, it's just data.

00;41;10;23 - 00;41;15;24
Ken Hoffert
Yeah, that's not coming to your mind when you're in the middle of it. But yeah.

00;41;15;26 - 00;41;42;08
Joshua Hoffert
No. If you can say, okay, why am I angry? Angry is it anger is typically a secondary emotion, right? Something has happened to me and now I've become angry because of it, because I'm experiencing another emotion and I use anger to cover or avoid the other emotion. So. So, you know, we've got to think through some of those things, secondary emotions and primary emotions.

00;41;42;16 - 00;42;08;00
Joshua Hoffert
shame is a primary emotion. Fear is a primary emotion. Anger is a secondary emotion. Sadness is a secondary emotion. Something has happened, and now this emotion is the way that I'm coping with the thing that has happened. and so, I mean, understanding the framework of that can be just, just simply understanding that can be transformative for how people see their responses to certain, situations.

00;42;09;10 - 00;42;27;26
Joshua Hoffert
let's, let's dive into this for a few minutes. the, the, the stages of emotions, how someone kind of moves through feeling emotions just, just in a way that can be helpful for people to think through. the, the first stage of engaging with an emotion is being totally unaware of its existence.

00;42;27;29 - 00;42;31;09
Ken Hoffert
It's mostly blissfully live right now. yeah.

00;42;31;09 - 00;42;48;17
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's right. It's. And this is where. And it doesn't mean that you're unemotional. It means that, you like, if someone rejects me, I reject them before they can reject me. Why do I do that? I'm just responding to every or me reacting to every life event.

00;42;48;17 - 00;42;50;28
Ken Hoffert
So it's not just a bad idea, is what you're saying.

00;42;51;02 - 00;43;25;26
Joshua Hoffert
No no no, no it's not. I'm all right. The thing is, I'm I'm rejecting them because I'm. I hold rejection in me. and so I reject people before they can reject me because I'm already experiencing rejection. I'm just unaware that it's already there. And I've become very good at ignoring it, whether that's through medication, whether that's through coping mechanisms, whether that's through, addictions to drugs, alcohol or pornography or, you know, maybe it could be even addiction to what they call doomscrolling.

00;43;25;28 - 00;43;52;16
Joshua Hoffert
Right? It's social media addiction. It's, any kind of thing can numb that, that the the presence of the emotion. Right. I, I was talking with someone recently who was, realizing that they, they were really angry at a particular situation, and they heard the, the, you know, the still quiet whisper of the spirits saying, I wonder where that anger comes from.

00;43;52;18 - 00;43;57;09
Joshua Hoffert
And and this person said to me. So I promptly grabbed my phone and started scrolling on Instagram.

00;43;57;11 - 00;43;59;08
Ken Hoffert
Yeah.

00;43;59;10 - 00;44;02;12
Joshua Hoffert
Because they didn't want to address it. Right. They were. They were like, I I'm not.

00;44;02;19 - 00;44;04;05
Ken Hoffert
Comfortable with that one. No.

00;44;04;08 - 00;44;17;18
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Eventually that person was like, all right, fine. I put there, they put their phone down and then, had a good conversation with the Lord about it. But but that's where we want to. We remain unaware. We're just we're blissfully ignorant in that sense. But but the people around us.

00;44;17;19 - 00;44;21;29
Ken Hoffert
So that's how. So we disconnect. Yes. Right.

00;44;21;29 - 00;44;53;18
Joshua Hoffert
So we are already disconnected. We're already disconnected. And those things continue to disconnect us from ourself, from others and from the father and especially so then the second stage of emotion, emotions. And that these two, the stage two and three kind of intertwine is to be emotionally avoidant. And I, I saw a meme someone shared today that that was from a kid's book that was like, you know, we we filled the, the thing in with dirt and then stamp it down until you can't see what's underneath it anymore.

00;44;53;18 - 00;45;11;00
Joshua Hoffert
And they said, this is how I deal with my emotions, right? That was the meme, right? And it's like, yeah, we're emotionally avoidant. We try and avoid feeling the emotion. And that's and again, that's where we might use addictions. That's where we might use distractions. All of those things the, the the thing is with emotions they come out somewhere.

00;45;11;00 - 00;45;31;00
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. You can't not you can't you can't keep them. I remember, the Lord showed me one time that I had it was like I had a, I had a sewer cap sitting on top of all my emotions because I just been. But it was like bubbling over with all this gunk that was underneath. Right. And it's like you can't just keep it in.

00;45;31;02 - 00;45;44;24
Joshua Hoffert
It comes out and it hurts people. And so we're avoidant and we we distract ourselves. Again, this can be addiction cycles, things like that. We distract ourselves rather than feel the emotion, we avoid it.

00;45;45;03 - 00;45;53;29
Ken Hoffert
oh. You gotta wonder about yourself. Why do I why do I solve this? You know how. Why do I always tend to self-destruct in this sort of a thing?

00;45;54;05 - 00;45;58;08
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Or, or I. Well, I don't feel those emotions, but.

00;45;58;08 - 00;46;17;08
Ken Hoffert
Yeah, I'm self-destructing anyway. I don't feel them yet. I'm still struggling. Yet somehow I disconnect myself from people and events and situations and, Yeah. And I. And the funny thing is, I know you want to get on to the next, so I'll just say this is every time we disconnect, we make ourselves less than what we really were.

00;46;17;10 - 00;46;29;17
Ken Hoffert
It's. Yeah. So we become less and less and less. And in the words of some of my favorite theologians, we become less human as we progress down. That's right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00;46;29;19 - 00;46;40;12
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, yeah. That that I was chatting with a friend today and they were talking about, how Jesus on the cross is when humanity is at its best.

00;46;40;12 - 00;46;41;07
Ken Hoffert
Yeah, right.

00;46;41;07 - 00;46;54;06
Joshua Hoffert
He's the the picture of him on the cross experiencing everything he experienced when he says it is finished, it's like, this is what it means to ultimately be human, right? Anyway, that's a really I.

00;46;54;08 - 00;46;56;22
Ken Hoffert
Never lost sight of who I am. And yeah.

00;46;56;23 - 00;46;59;07
Joshua Hoffert
I never lost sight of who I am, regardless of what has happened.

00;46;59;07 - 00;47;04;22
Ken Hoffert
To be consistent with myself, even to the point of death.

00;47;04;25 - 00;47;27;05
Joshua Hoffert
One of the one of the really contemplative options, one of the orthodox contemplative authors I like. He says that the cross proves that the content of his being was love right till the end, and it was pure love right to the end. I thought, that's a really good one. so you're right either. So, stages of emotion, emotionally avoidant or emotionally expressive, right?

00;47;27;05 - 00;47;32;25
Joshua Hoffert
We tend to fly off the handle in the face of anything like we our emotions totally dictate how we respond. I don't.

00;47;32;25 - 00;47;34;08
Ken Hoffert
Have control over that any.

00;47;34;08 - 00;47;40;29
Joshua Hoffert
Longer. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Someone cuts me off in traffic and I spend the next ten minutes swearing and cursing at them.

00;47;41;01 - 00;47;44;21
Ken Hoffert
And then when I get all my migraines can be. Yeah.

00;47;44;23 - 00;48;03;00
Joshua Hoffert
Exactly. Yes. Yeah. I am subject to my emotions, so. Right. I'm not avoiding, I'm not avoidant, but I'm subject to them and, and I, they're just expressing themselves all the time, and I can't help it. and I lose sight of myself. I see things, I do things I act out in ways that I regret later.

00;48;03;03 - 00;48;21;21
Ken Hoffert
And that doesn't necessarily mean that someone is in that spot, 100% of the time. It just means that things affect your trigger. You as well. You like to use that term these days that. Yeah, that into a a reactionary response or that's.

00;48;21;21 - 00;48;50;14
Joshua Hoffert
The hard part about it and that and that's where that's where because we've become so good and so adept at separating our actions from our ideas. I can have an idea about who I am that doesn't necessarily have to connect with the person of of who I am, how I live. Right? Yeah. I become so good at that because I can I can hypothesize the identity of Josh over here and then live a different way over here.

00;48;50;16 - 00;49;07;19
Joshua Hoffert
Right. You know, that's why I like, you know, one of the classic examples would be Alcoholics Anonymous. The first thing you have to say is I'm an addict, right? Because the attic doesn't say I'm an addict, the attic doesn't. They have an idea of themselves over here, but a practice over here that's disintegrating and destroying the other people in their life.

00;49;07;19 - 00;49;07;29
Joshua Hoffert
And so, yeah.

00;49;08;05 - 00;49;09;01
Ken Hoffert
Bring them back together.

00;49;09;01 - 00;49;30;05
Joshua Hoffert
And you have to bring them back together. Yes. I've got who I am and how I live. Have to be in, in sync, in sync with each other. Yeah. Not in in not in incongruous with each other. Right. so then we've got in the next stage of emotion would be, being emotionally in touch. You can, you can.

00;49;30;05 - 00;49;47;18
Joshua Hoffert
It's a big thing for some people to learn how to name the emotion they're feeling. Right? Even as simple as a, emotion, like fear or anger, right? To be able to say, I feel angry, right? Like that. That can be a big step of emotional maturity for a person, because they don't even know how to identify it before.

00;49;47;18 - 00;50;05;00
Joshua Hoffert
Before. It's just a ball of confusion, right? That I don't know how to deal with. But now I can say, oh, that one's anger, or that one is fear, or that one is shame, right? Just learning to recognize what an emotion is like can be a big step in starting to recovery.

00;50;05;00 - 00;50;30;20
Ken Hoffert
So it's like someone's listening to us right now. just taking a moment, hitting the pause button for a second and saying, okay, yeah, what am I what am I feeling emotionally right now? Would be a good step. Like, am I feeling, am I just kind of blasé? Am I feeling a sadness in my feeling? am I am I just numb to things?

00;50;30;21 - 00;50;38;10
Ken Hoffert
Am I angry at something? You know, that's a good thing. That. Check it out. Yeah. But yeah. So yeah.

00;50;38;12 - 00;50;43;25
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Or am I offended which again would be another secondary emotion. All right I'm offended.

00;50;43;26 - 00;50;46;23
Ken Hoffert
There's an emotion can I'm just I'm friended me.

00;50;46;26 - 00;51;07;19
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah okay. Well have you have have we offended you because you feel exposed and it's shame, right? Have we offended you because you feel hopeless? Like, oh, I don't know if I can ever get over this. No, I'm offended right now. So the the the big six emotions disintegrate. I lose sight of myself. And now I have a secondary emotion that's, showing me how to respond.

00;51;07;26 - 00;51;32;08
Joshua Hoffert
Right. So. Yeah. That's right. and then the, the last the. So being able to name the emotion is not emotional health, but it's a good step on the way there. And then I'd say the last stage of emotion would be the ability to transform emotion. And so going from anger okay, I see the anger. Where's the anger coming from?

00;51;32;15 - 00;51;55;27
Joshua Hoffert
How do I understand that? How do I, act like myself in the midst of it? So emotional transformation. And that's a it's a lifelong journey. Emotional transformation in that sense. Right. So, the the the benefit of walking with the Holy Spirit is that the Holy Spirit will pinpoint, like the friend I was telling you about that was like, oh, I'm angry right now.

00;51;55;29 - 00;52;12;29
Joshua Hoffert
Oh, well, you know, there's something to that. Well, this, this person and just can just come to it by themselves. It took the Holy Spirit pinpointing it, highlighting it, and then elaborating on it. And then a whole litany of memories came with that going, oh, that I learned to respond in anger because of these things. All right. Right.

00;52;13;01 - 00;52;35;10
Joshua Hoffert
That was the Holy Spirit, right? That wasn't they didn't they weren't. Oh, I'm anger. I'm angry. And now I have a resource to recover my soul from anger. I'm angry. And now I understand where I've come from because the Lord revealed it to me. And that always the revelation of God and that sense always stands in opposition or in relation, not opposition, but in relation to the revelation of what he's like.

00;52;35;13 - 00;52;45;12
Joshua Hoffert
And so I see what he's like, and I see what I believe about myself, and I see what I believe about myself, what I believe about him. And now I'm starting to find a balance between those things.

00;52;45;12 - 00;53;04;07
Ken Hoffert
But what if I say, yeah, pardon me? What if I just say that? That seems like so much work and it is a lot of work. why don't I just wait, die, go to heaven, and then everything will be better.

00;53;04;27 - 00;53;12;10
Joshua Hoffert
because, well, one is you'll. You'll destroy all the emotion, all the relationships around you.

00;53;12;12 - 00;53;15;09
Ken Hoffert
And what is that, a solution to?

00;53;15;11 - 00;53;17;02
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. No, it's not a solution.

00;53;17;08 - 00;53;18;03
Ken Hoffert
But it's not.

00;53;18;03 - 00;53;24;11
Joshua Hoffert
A solution at all. They do believe that it's a solution. And,

00;53;24;14 - 00;53;29;05
Ken Hoffert
It it's like I can just hold off.

00;53;29;08 - 00;53;36;00
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Let let's I okay. This is, this might get too heady and too complicated, but I'm going to I'm going to try and go there anyway.

00;53;36;00 - 00;53;38;12
Ken Hoffert
Oh we're wrapping up anyway. But. Right. Yeah.

00;53;38;12 - 00;54;02;18
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Because it's a, it's a, it's a great question. What that that we're going back to some patristic theology here okay. And I'm not going to quote particular patristic, but you know, anybody that's in the historical historic tradition of Christianity, Catholic or Orthodox, will recognize this thought process. So when Daniel has a vision in Daniel seven, the Ancient of Days is sitting on the throne, right?

00;54;02;18 - 00;54;25;22
Joshua Hoffert
The end of the vision. Right? He sees all these beasts and everything. The Ancient of Days is on the throne. And it says that a, a river of fire flows from his throne. Right. I think that's in Daniel seven. Daniel 7 or 8. I'm pretty sure it's Daniel seven, but it's it's one of those two. There's a river of fire flows from the throne of the Ancient of Days.

00;54;25;22 - 00;54;54;15
Joshua Hoffert
God. Right? Right. and and then you see, say, Ezekiel's vision in Ezekiel 4248 of the temple, and you see the throne, which is characterized as the Holy of Holies. Right? This is this is my throne, right? God says that about the Holy of Holies, flowing from the Holy of Holies is not a fight or a river of fire.

00;54;54;18 - 00;54;55;16
Joshua Hoffert
It's a river of water.

00;54;55;16 - 00;54;59;04
Ken Hoffert
Okay, fire now. And it's water.

00;54;59;06 - 00;55;25;09
Joshua Hoffert
And it's fire and water. Yes. And the, and so the, the river in Ezekiel is characterized by, bringing health and life everywhere it goes, except for the marshy place, the marshes. All the life dies. That's what it says. You know, that's summing up a lot of what it says about the river. Then you look in, revelation 20, 21 and 22, right?

00;55;25;09 - 00;55;49;27
Joshua Hoffert
You've got the throne and you've got the river coming from the throne. Same same picture imagery from. They're all pulling on the same stuff from Daniel. Physical to revelation. And you see the, the river going out, and now you see that it's surrounded by trees that whose leaves bring healing. Right? So this river that brings healing. So patristic theology said, and I think there's a lot of truth to this.

00;55;49;29 - 00;56;13;26
Joshua Hoffert
Is it? The fire and the water are the same two things. It's not one thing or the other. It's the same two things. The difference between them is the experience of the person to the one who lives in a in an attached, connected, richly intimate way with the father you get before him. And it's the healing of life that you find to the one who's rejected and walked away from him.

00;56;13;29 - 00;56;36;11
Joshua Hoffert
It's the experience of fire that you find. And so what their their whole thing is that it's not it's not two different ways. So to one, the fire burns, to one the fire purifies us. And so this presents, this presents some dilemmas to us when we think about, well, I'll just keep living my crappy life, taking advantage of people and hurting people until the very end.

00;56;36;11 - 00;56;58;27
Joshua Hoffert
And then I'll get out of it. And it's like, well, you became something less than human the whole way through. So what are you going to be on the other side, somehow restored to fully human? It's like, well, there's there are there are ramifications for how I live my life here and now and the kind of the kind of embodiment of that in the life of the hereafter.

00;56;58;29 - 00;57;01;02
Joshua Hoffert
And, and I so I'm.

00;57;01;02 - 00;57;12;01
Ken Hoffert
Not some sort of pure spirit trapped in a, in a terrible body that no is and I'm just waiting to get free. No, that's not at all.

00;57;12;03 - 00;57;15;17
Joshua Hoffert
I mean, no, not at all. It's. It is.

00;57;15;17 - 00;57;39;27
Ken Hoffert
So I'm a human being. I am embodied physically and I, I have I have that, you know, if we use that tripartite thing, I have that soul, I have that spirit, and there are all these other dimensions of me as a human being, then, yes, if I'm not living as a human being here on earth where I was designed to live.

00;57;40;00 - 00;57;47;06
Ken Hoffert
Exactly. Earth was made for humans to live on. Yes. So and it's. And God said it's good ideas.

00;57;47;09 - 00;58;24;18
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. And my point is when you when you get ostensibly what the Bible seems to lay out is that when you quote unquote get to the other side, right? When, when God is in the in the process of restoring creation and setting creation, right. And the ultimate fulfillment of that happens through creation. Yeah, yeah. New creation is that I in standing before him, I'm either going to see a blazing hot fire because of what I've conditioned myself to see, or I'm going to see the being of a pure, eternal love who I've turned myself to consistently, over and over and.

00;58;24;20 - 00;59;00;03
Ken Hoffert
Over again, addressing the implications of my overwhelming emotions and and the reasons that they overwhelm me. So if I if I'm walking through life and I'm and I'm growing and I'm finding ways to become what we would call healthy, then I'm becoming more and more in tune with that beauty and that truth and that. Yes, that, what we were all calling water coming from the throne where we're it's life thing that just creates, hope and anticipation and.

00;59;00;03 - 00;59;23;10
Ken Hoffert
Yes. And so we have a lot of people in this world today that that live without hope or anticipation of something good happening. And it's all and and either they've given up or. Yeah, I think in, in a lot of Christian circles, they've given up and said, well, I can't really fix anything, so I'll just wait until the end and, and then God will fix it for me.

00;59;23;13 - 00;59;30;11
Joshua Hoffert
When those he's been in the business of trying to fix it for millennia and millennium.

00;59;30;18 - 00;59;37;12
Ken Hoffert
Okay, so what happened when Jesus walked around on the earth? He fix things? Yeah, yeah, I think he's still fixing them.

00;59;37;14 - 01;00;01;11
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. And so that, for our part, what we're trying to do is show you there's a better way and and there's a way to walk in the, the the fixing now. Right. And, to embody the life of the common. And it's important to know it's not. The thing is, when it comes to the disintegration of the human being and, it's not I don't know that you like.

01;00;01;11 - 01;00;20;15
Joshua Hoffert
I'm not saying God's gonna like. Sometimes it's characterized. I've got it. I actually have a few tracks that I like to hold in my drawer down here, because I laugh at them. It's not. I don't think it's that God's going to play a ticker tape, you know, thing of your life and go look at these are all the ways that you failed.

01;00;20;15 - 01;00;24;28
Ken Hoffert
I've been taking and keeping track of all your failures. Here they are.

01;00;25;00 - 01;00;32;13
Joshua Hoffert
You've already chosen a course that your life is going to go. And so when you stand there, your life is already going that way.

01;00;32;15 - 01;00;32;22
Ken Hoffert
All right.

01;00;32;22 - 01;00;35;17
Joshua Hoffert
I've already. It's not God going. I'm judging you now.

01;00;35;20 - 01;00;38;06
Ken Hoffert
It's that say you're twisted.

01;00;38;09 - 01;00;44;24
Joshua Hoffert
You're already two. You've already made a litany of choices your whole life to go a particular direction. But what about a person that's not.

01;00;44;24 - 01;00;48;09
Ken Hoffert
I don't even know why I'm choosing that.

01;00;48;12 - 01;00;51;00
Joshua Hoffert
Why they're choosing? Yeah, well, this is.

01;00;51;07 - 01;00;52;29
Ken Hoffert
An address there's in the coming weeks.

01;00;53;01 - 01;01;18;10
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. We are going to address. We are going to address that. Yes. Yeah. There are, there are certain certainly within the context of what we said, there are certain mysteries that we can never explain. in the sense of, you know, some people, you know, never heard the gospel preached, never had the contextually never had someone to share what Jesus was like.

01;01;18;13 - 01;01;37;25
Joshua Hoffert
Whatever. You know, there's certain mysteries to the situation that, are beyond the bounds of the human being. To explain, suffice it to say that the being of pure love, when you've, you know, when you've walked with him, integration comes very naturally. It's the byproduct of it.

01;01;37;27 - 01;01;40;15
Ken Hoffert
So,

01;01;40;17 - 01;02;04;12
Joshua Hoffert
So those are the those are the six those are the, six big emotions. And those are some of the ways that we, work through those things. And, you know, here would be a good study for you to do on your own time is looking at the life of Jesus and find, examine. You can find examples of all six emotions.

01;02;04;14 - 01;02;22;04
Joshua Hoffert
Jesus. So do this on your own time. All because we could have gone through this, but we won't go through the Gospels and look at the life of Jesus and go, where did Jesus experience these big six emotions and stay true to himself and His call and his mission, his vocation? Because you can find every one of them, right?

01;02;22;04 - 01;02;25;06
Joshua Hoffert
You can find every single one of those big six emotions.

01;02;25;08 - 01;02;28;03
Ken Hoffert
And and he didn't stop because.

01;02;28;05 - 01;02;34;04
Joshua Hoffert
And he didn't stop being himself. Yeah. Which is the life that he offers to humanity.

01;02;34;04 - 01;02;36;26
Ken Hoffert
He trained his disciples that way too. So that's it.

01;02;36;29 - 01;03;01;03
Joshua Hoffert
And he trained his disciples that way. Yes. That's right. And with that, we will draw this episode to a close. And so, everybody, thanks for listening. And, you know, give us a, a review on whatever podcasting platform you are on. Those are very helpful for us. And share the podcast with your friends to let them know about Win the Win Ministries podcast.

01;03;01;03 - 01;03;08;24
Joshua Hoffert
And, I think we have some, some really good stuff out there now and coming up as well. So until next time, everybody. God bless.