How do you deal with an emptying emotional cup? A window into my mind…
I don’t think that our emotional cup is supposed to stay the same size, throughout our life. If the cup size cannot change, then emotional capacity is limited with no hope for emotional growth.
I recently engaged the government–at their request–about the marriage laws in South Africa, and one area of engagement was about the minimum age of marriage without parental consent. It got me thinking, in biblical times, a couple could get married once puberty had set in; possibly around 13. By today’s standards, this is young, however, in many cultures’ emotional and physical maturity was the benchmark for readiness to marry; indeed, historically speaking, everyone was expected to mature socially and emotionally more quickly than today.
Rather than dropping the age of marriage without parental consent, I recommended to the Department that this age must be at least 21. I suggested that maturity–particularly spiritual and emotional maturity–would be a greater success factor than age alone.
The same is true for life, emotional maturity is a critical success factor.
Spiritual maturity is becoming more like Christ (Philippians 3:12-14). Becoming more like Christ includes emotional maturity, Jesus loved, wept, showed compassion, was angry, upset and accused of being too joyful etc. At the same time, emotional maturity is needed to become more like Christ as we set aside pride, develop empathy, learn how to manage anger etc.
We cannot mature in one area without also maturing in the other.
Perhaps then, if one is feeling spiritually stuck, one might also be emotionally stuck? How far away does God feel, when your emotions are out of control? How close does God feel when your emotions are appropriate?
As we grow old, there are more and more emotional demands placed on us: settling into the rhythm of marriage, children, work, grandchildren, health challenges and so forth.
Think about these things: stress, strain, rejection, loneliness, isolation, yelling, punishment, failures, disappointments, fatigue, birth, marriage, leadership, death, and retirement. These are but some of life’s events that will inevitably, challenge your emotional capacity, to an increasing degree in life as you grow older, your family grows bigger, your friendship circle enlarges, and your work responsibilities increase.
The typical emotional cup of a 16-year-old is not going to be big enough moving forward!
This is one of my life’s lessons: as I grow older, I need a bigger emotional cup.
All of us are challenged to grow in maturity. Christians are also challenged, at the same time, to grow spiritually. As I have said, both emotional and spiritual growth helps us to become more like Jesus.
Did you know that MePeople has an 8-hour discipleship program in emotional maturity that will help you to increase your emotional cup size? If you are interested, contact us at hello@mepeople.co.za.
Let me know if I or Lizette can be of help to you.
Be blessed,
Craig