"Joy, Church, and the Neglected Face of God" by Michel Hendricks | Day 9|March 31, 2023

Another culprit that leaks joy is unresolved trauma. From the brain’s perspective, trauma happens anytime we suffer alone. Suffering turns into trauma when we are unable to process our suffering with God and other people. Trauma is stored in our brain, in circuits of flesh, kind of like an armed mousetrap. When something goes wrong that feels like a previous trauma to our brain, not only do we experience unpleasant emotions, but our trauma gets triggered. The mousetrap goes SNAP! The trauma magnifies the already big feelings, and we get stuck in distress. 

After we recover, we will often wonder, Why did I overreact so much? We may have no conscious memory of the trauma, but our right brain remembers. When we see an emotional reaction that is disproportionate to the circumstances, we are likely seeing the stored energy of unhealed trauma. When you heal trauma, the energy stored in the traumatic memory dissipates and is no longer triggerable. You have just plugged a hole in your joy tank!

Another joy leak is the prevalence of video screens in our daily lives. We use smartphones, television, and movie screens to fill our idle minutes or hours. Joy and screen time are inversely proportional. When our eyes and face are staring at our phones, we are not engaging with the faces around us. The joy drains out of our communities by depriving ourselves of each other’s faces. Our need for face-to-face time is designed into our flesh and cannot be substituted with a screen. Our brains can distinguish between a real face and a face on a screen even when we are infants. Our neurological circuits do not react to screens the same as they do to live faces. Since we need facial joy like we need food and oxygen, we are starving ourselves of relational nutrition. Parents can start by putting limits on screen time and emphasizing face-to-face conversation. You will be surprised how different you and your family will feel when you look at each other in the face. Plugging this joy leak will involve being countercultural. Churches must lead the way by restoring joy to our soil. 

Finally, a narcissist in the community rips a gaping hole in our joy tank. A church or family will have a hard time raising joy without patching this hole, and it is a difficult hole to repair. The goal of this book is to explain how we create spiritual soil that grows character and is resistant to the growth of narcissism. A narcissistic person has a hard time thriving and growing roots in healthy soil. As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

1. Think of a time when you obviously overreacted to something or someone. Which emotion was central in the overreaction?

2. Take a 3-day fast from your phone. Use it only for essential communication and nothing else. Engage with people during the time you might be looking at your phone. Journal what you feel during those 3 days.

Matthew 11:28-30 ESV

²⁸ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”