I've just returned from New York. The landscape of Manhattan is stunning, even for a guy who prefers the country over the city. Ground Zero is overwhelming...when you are physically there to see how small of an area those twin towers stood on and how close together the buildings are there, you begin to see it a miracle that we only lost the number of lives we did and that more damage was not done. Times Square, for a guy who loves technology and video, is my favorite place.

I was there for an Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Pastors & Leaders Conference. Those who have journeyed the last few years with us know that we have been learning to integrate the emotional area of our lives with the spiritual part of us.

I don't know about you, but I have found that most of my relationship with Jesus received LOTS of great discipleship in the spiritual area. I learned how to grow my relationship with God through passionate worship, fervent reading of the Word, study, and prayer. I even spent a number of years going through Bible College to learn how to study and teach God's Word, and to find out the "mechanics" of leading and pastoring.

I really did think that whatever I couldn't do, God would...miraculously! I've prayed for people and seen them healed instantly. I've laid hands on some, asked the Holy Spirit to baptize them and heard them speak in other tongues. I've discipled countless others in how to do the same and seen them do even more than I've seen.

These things are all right and good, and I still believe in them all! However, I painfully discovered that while I was "doing" great things spiritually, my "being" was dying emotionally. I thought it was just a part of "dying to myself, so that more of Jesus could live!" What I found out was that Jesus never meant for me to die to the emotional part of me, but that He wanted to live and thrive and grow IN me THROUGH my emotions.

When push came to shove in my life about six years ago; when the heat was on and I was not only in the kitchen, but standing on the stove, I learned that God longed for me to love Him not only with my spirit, but in and through my emotions too.

A long, painful process began that led me to discover that you cannot separate your emotional maturity from your spiritual maturity. You cannot be spiritually mature and remain emotionally mature. When you do, eventually, when life crumbles on you, you find out that you have the emotional wherewithal of a child instead of an emotionally mature adult.

How could I teach love, acceptance and forgiveness and yet avoid conflict like the plague whenever it arose? Why would I feel so guilty whenever I had to say "no" to someone who wanted me to do something I couldn't fit into an already over-scheduled calendar?

Well, I'll tell you how I did it. I had for years learned to grow in my spiritual maturity, all the while essentially leaving my emotional maturity in the dust. But you can only do that for so long before the two MUST begin to grow together.

Jesus clearly modeled for us the spectrum of emotional life that we experience. I don't know how I taught on it, yet still missed it, but Jesus showed anger, sorrow, frustration, joy, love, peace. The list could go on and on.

"But the Bible also clearly says Jesus was perfect!" you say. YES! And that's why he not only died, but HE ROSE AGAIN! Through Jesus' resurrection, we have the ability to know Him in the full scope of Who He is, spiritually AND emotionally. As Lent comes to a close, we move toward the celebration of the fullness of life that Jesus brings, because He died and ROSE AGAIN.