Emotional Intelligence: Key to Spiritual Growth and Relationships

Well, good morning, Fox River. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Joshua Straub, and it is an honor to be with you today.

I want to begin by introducing to you my family. This is the heartbeat of my life, other than Jesus himself in my heart. The gifts he has given me as a family include my wife, Christy. We have a fifth-grade, newly minted 11-year-old son named Landon, a nine-year-old daughter named Kennedy, and a wild, crazy toddler—a driven three-year-old boy named Micah. I'll explain there's an age gap there for a reason, which I'll explain here in just a little bit.

My wife and I lead an organization called Famous at Home. A lot of what I'll be talking about today can be explored deeper by listening to our podcast, Famous at Home. Basically, what we do is help families. Our heart is really the family, but it's built in the context of a wheel. The hub of the wheel is emotional intelligence. We're really of the mindset that Pastor Peter Scazzero talks about in his book, *Emotionally Healthy Spirituality*: you cannot be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.

That's why we write children's books called *What Do I Do with Worry?*, *What Am I Feeling?*, and *What Do I Do with Anger?* We're really huge on the idea of emotions and emotional intelligence, and that's what we're going to talk about today. But it's going to be geared more towards the family. So if you're a family in here, you'll receive that. These are principles that I talk about no matter where I'm at—whether I'm speaking to the military, whether I'm speaking in a corporate setting on emotional intelligence to places like Chick-fil-A or Groove Life, or other organizations I get invited into to speak on these things.

These are principles that can be applied whether you're a grandparent, whether you're dating, whether you're a solo parent, a single parent, or a student—no matter your stage. By the way, students in here, what's fascinating is Google did a research study a number of years ago. They wanted to look at their top employees within Google to see if their hiring processes were really working. In other words, they were hiring for STEM skills: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. If you're a STEM teacher in here, this is no slight on you whatsoever; this is just a point that Google found.

They wanted to see if their hiring process was working, and what they found was that all of those skills were coming in dead last among their most productive employees. What was coming in at the top were three things: number one was emotional safety, number two was emotional intelligence, and number three was empathy. In other words, they were the soft skills—the ability to relate well—that were coming in at the top. It changed how all these major tech companies started to hire in their process.

So emotional intelligence and these soft skills are really important. Today, I'm going to give you a biblical understanding of what these things are and how we can apply them to our family in the middle of the chaos of a new school year.

How many of you were super excited about your new school starting this past week? Raise your hand if you're in the excitement of it. There are a few of you. How many of you dreaded it? You were sad that summer's over? Okay, a lot of you.

Here's what ends up happening, though. I think we get excited in week one of anything new, particularly a school year, right? We start with excitement, but then what happens is by about week three, we start to feel too busy. Activities start to ramp up, and then by week four, we start nitpicking. Anyone in here relate? By week four, we're nitpicking. Yeah, we got a few here.

By week six, we're overwhelmed by activities. We're just exhausted. By week eight, we're feeling disconnected as a family and alone, and we're like, "What is going on here? Why are we so disconnected?"

What started with excitement has now led to a place of feeling overwhelmed, like there's not enough time and like we're too busy. It's like we lose our "why" of why we were doing this in the first place.

This morning, what I want to do is take a look at our rhythms in our family because what I'm afraid of is that we end up laying our heads on the pillow at night with a nagging sense that we were wishing there was more time, more margin, and more connection in our family—like we had more vision, like we knew our "why."

What I want to do this morning is start out with a little exercise. I would love for you, if you have your phones, to pull them out. If you're a grandparent in here, I would love for you to do this with your kids and your grandkids. If you're a parent in here, do this with your kids.

Here's the exercise: If you look up here on the screen, I did this for my family. On the left-hand side, write your name from the oldest to the youngest and write their current age beside your name. Then, what I want you to do is write the age of each person 10 years from now.

It's a very humbling experience for me to look at this graphic and realize that in 10 years, I'm going to be 54 years old. It's a very humbling experience for me to look at this and realize that my son is going to be 21 ten years from now.

What I would love for you to do is take a moment and allow the Holy Spirit to just speak to you—or maybe your gut, maybe your mind. If you're a believer, if you have Jesus in your heart, I believe the Holy Spirit speaks to us.

What I'd love for you to do is think about and evaluate: Are the routines and the rhythms that we have implemented in our home today getting us to a place where, ten years from now, we want to be as a family? Because I think so often we just do what culture tells us to do, and we just start running the rat race, but we don't know why. We end up feeling disconnected and fragmented, and we lay our heads on the pillow at night wishing that there was more connection.

My heart today is to lead us through a few principles that I believe will help us get to a place of feeling more connected and having more vision in our family.

The first thing that I would love to do is give you what I believe is the quintessential phrase that centers us in every principle we're going to have today. There was a book I was reading by an author named Brennan Manning. In 1993, he wrote this book called *Abba's Child*, and in that book, in chapter two, it's kind of like the quintessential chapter on imposter syndrome—in other words, that sense of rising your false self rather than living out of your true self.

There was a phrase he wrote in there that I think really pops out. He said this: "If you're living out of your true self, you will be able to walk into a room not shouting, 'Here I am, here I am,' but are you walking into a room going, 'Oh, there you are?'"

Are we walking into a room going, "Do you show up in a room shouting, 'Here I am,' or do you show up in a room going, 'Oh, there you are?'" I think this phrase today is something I want to unpack through a couple of principles.

The very first principle that I want to walk through today is this: Fight for the heart of your spouse and your kids. In other words, talk about emotions.

Now, you guys are probably like, "Oh my goodness, why is he talking about emotions here? It's too mushy for me." The reason I speak for Joint Special Operations Command and the military is because I teach guys who are trained to capture and kill—that's their job—to talk about emotions.

Now, why do I keep getting invited back? Because the very thing that they're trained to turn off to survive on the battlefield is the very thing they need to turn back on to survive when they get back home.

When we start something new, like our school year, it's like, "Oh, this is so exciting!" Or we start a new job, and we're like, "Oh, this is so exciting!" Or we have a baby, and we're like, "Ah, this is so exciting!" But it gets to a point where we're just moving to survival.

It's like we always start with excitement, but when our rhythms are out of place or things get thrown in that are unexpected circumstances, we lead to survival.

Here's a picture of me with my son, Landon, early on in our parenting years. This gives you an example of what we experienced early on. We dealt with colic and acid reflux. My wife had a back injury; she threw her back out. I played volleyball in college, and what happened is her pregnancy and the first two years with our first two kids—this is why there's an age gap—just threw us out of whack.

She was on bed rest for three weeks. She had a porta potty next to her, like you'd see in a nursing home, because she couldn't even walk to the bathroom. I'm taking care of a six-week-old that slept in 23 to 43-minute increments—we know because we timed it—a two-year-old, and then my dad had congestive heart failure at the time. I was trying to work, trying to take care of everything. It was exhausting.

It's like God humbled us in the very thing that he called us to so we wouldn't pull our britches up too high thinking we had our act together.

I remember going back into the research because my doctoral research was in the area of attachment. I was like, "God, what would it be like? How do we—what will have really mattered at the end of raising my kids when they're 21, when they're 19, when I'm a grandparent and I'm looking back on my grandkids' lives? What will have really mattered?"

I went back into the research, and what I found was that every single outcome that we desire in our kids—whether it's good grades, extracurricular activities, whether it's having good friendships even into adulthood, whether it's getting married, staying married, and actually enjoying their marriage, having high marital satisfaction, having a faith that sticks—every single major outcome that I care about in my kids led back to this one primary phrase: emotional safety.

I thought, "Wow, this is fascinating." Even Vern Bankston, a researcher out of the University of Southern California, followed families for 55 years. Imagine following families for 55 years! I had the privilege of meeting him and spending time with him a few years back at an event. He's since passed, but he found that the single greatest factor for faith transmission across the generations was this relational warmth, particularly from a father figure.

I was like, "Wow, God, this is fascinating to me because all this research points back to this idea of entering into our kids' world, entering into the hearts of our spouses, and fighting for them."

Then I read, "Is this biblical?" I went into Psalm 103. He says, "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him, for he knows what we are made of, remembering that we are of dust."

The Lord is compassionate. You see this all through the Psalms. He's compassionate and gracious, Abba Father, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. Yet how are we quick to anger?

He will not always accuse us or be angry forever. He does not deal with us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. He is a father who loves us with an everlasting love.

What's fascinating about this is research shows that the brain grows from the bottom to the top. So why do we, when we start something exciting, all of a sudden go to a place where it's exhausting, and we're trying to survive, and we're out of rhythm, and we don't have enough margin?

We stop fighting for the hearts of our loved ones, and we start protecting our own. Well, research shows that our brain grows from the bottom to the top. The bottom part of the brain is the fight, flight, or freeze response—that's the amygdala, right? That's where you're really amped up.

It's the God-given part of our brain that teaches us to protect ourselves when we feel threatened. The higher functioning parts of the brain, behind the eyes, are the prefrontal cortex, and they're known for functions like emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility, social skills, and even self-control.

What is the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. When you look at this, we have a three-year-old, by the way, who doesn't have this part of the brain developed yet.

That's why rental car companies—because listen, researchers show that the brain doesn't fully develop until you hit about the age of 25, which is why rental car companies are smarter than politicians, right?

But yet, as parents, the malleability of our brains—the way God wired our brains—is that we can build that part of our kids' brains by the way we interact with them, by showing up and entering their worlds.

Listen, the Bible says Jesus came full of grace and truth. When we lead in grace and then follow in truth, because we enter into the story of our kids or we enter into the story of our spouse, no matter what season of life you’re in—if you're a grandparent, if you're in a dating relationship, no matter where you are—entering into the heart, into the mind, into the story of your students, your kids, your grandkids has a calming effect on their brain.

When there's a calming effect on the brain, that's what allows us to be able to think straight. You see, the brain also grows from the right to the left. The right side of the brain is the experiential, here-and-now part of the brain. It's what you're experiencing in the moment; it's where overwhelm happens.

The left side of the brain is the linguistic side of the brain. It's where we put language to what it is we're experiencing. I like to call that middle part of the brain, the corpus callosum, the binding of the book. It's where you put language to your story.

This is why when we talk about emotions and we go deeper than just talking about the business of the day with our spouse or going more than the business of the day with our kids, we can go deeper into their hearts.

Now, what does the Bible say about this? Is this biblical? Look at Philippians chapter four. I believe Paul understood the brain more than we realized as an apostle. Right before this, by the way, he says, "The Lord is near."

So imagine God is near; he's a good God. He's Abba Father, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. Therefore, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving—in other words, giving thanks to God—you know that neuroscience researchers found that gratitude pushes anxiety out of the brain?

The more grateful you are, the less you worry. With thanksgiving, present your requests to God. In other words, name your emotions to God. This is where a prayer of examine is so powerful—where you examine your day and you label your emotion. You talk about your emotion to God and go, "God, I felt anxious today. I felt overwhelmed. I felt rejected. I felt embarrassed. I felt content. I felt brave. I felt calm."

And the peace of God—in other words, label your emotions to God—and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Now, it's not until this point that Paul writes, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think on these things."

I think Paul understood that when we're anxious and overwhelmed, we're functioning out of fight, flight, or freeze. We don't think straight. A three-year-old overwhelmed, a teenager overwhelmed, a spouse overwhelmed—what do we do? We protect ourselves.

I genuinely believe that when we label our emotions, beginning with God in prayer, and we label our emotions—so in other words, with our spouse. When we do marriage intensives, my wife and I do marriage intensives. The very biggest thing that we say to spouses is this: What's going on within your spouse's heart matters more than what's going on between the two of you.

How many of you often argue and you realize you don't even remember what you were arguing about? You see, when you start defending yourself, I believe that James 1:19-20 are the most sanctifying verses in all of Scripture: "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry."

Do you know what verse 20 says? It says, "Because human anger does not accomplish God's righteousness." Wow! Why are we quick to speak and quick to become angry? Because we're defending ourselves.

What we need is someone to enter into our world and go, "Oh, there you are." When your kids or your spouse are overwhelmed, we need to enter into their world and go, "Oh, there you are."

One of the best ways to do this, very practically speaking, is instead of doing the highs and lows of the day with your kids or with your spouse, simply take time at the dinner table, in the morning, at the end of the day, or at bedtime, and just ask, "What was one positive emotion that you felt today, and what was one uncomfortable emotion that you felt today?"

I don't like to use the word "negative" because I think every emotion and feeling was given to us by God as a way for us to be able to understand and evaluate the world around us—people, situations—and take us deeper into him.

So, what was one uncomfortable or positive emotion you felt today? Fight for the heart of your spouse and your kids.

This leads us to number two, and that is this: Prioritize or focus on who you're becoming.

There was a research study by a guy out of Harvard University, and he wanted to do a meta-analysis on what were the top ten parenting strategies to get the outcomes we most desire in our kids. A meta-analysis is where you take a whole bunch of data and combine it into one study, and you summarize it all.

What he found was this: Of the top three, I'm going to give you the top three parenting strategies to get to the outcomes they most desire in our kids. You all ready for this?

Number one: love and affection. By the way, these are principles that can show up in your work environment, in your school environment, and in your home.

Number two: Are you ready for this one? I don't think you are, but it'll make sense after what I just explained about the brain and how we show up in children's worlds. The second greatest parenting strategy to get to the outcomes you most desire in your kids is a parent's ability to manage his or her own stress.

Number three is how you treat your spouse or how you treat a co-parent in a divorce situation. Of the top three parenting strategies, I would argue that none of them have to do with a direct relationship with our kids. They have everything to do with who we're becoming as adults.

Because even love and affection—the Bible says we love because he first loved us. Our ability to show up with Abba Father, who loves us with an everlasting love—anytime we go to therapy, what's the first question a therapist will ask? "About who? Your parents. How well were you loved in your own home?"

Our ability to love is a reflection of how well we have been loved. That's where I believe I'm a huge fan of the household. I believe the household—both the household of faith, as Ephesians talks about this, and the blessing that came out of Ephesians today—the household and the household of faith were given to us by God.

We're going to be at a marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus describes himself as the bridegroom, and we, the bride. Everything is about the household—Abba Father. Everything is about the household, the household of faith. The house we—the household—was designed to build the kingdom of God.

That's the vision that we all have as families that is so much bigger than the activities that we put our kids in or the activities that we end up being in: building the kingdom of God.

Research shows that our children will not outgrow our emotional maturity while they're living under our roof. In other words, if my emotional ceiling is my children's floor, then I want to raise my roof, and I want to surround myself with people who will enter into my world when I'm the one who needs to be "Here I am."

I'm struggling, I'm stressed, I'm overwhelmed. We all need people in our lives, and that's where I believe the biblical community is one of the strongest, most important places. The gates of hell will not prevail against it.

If you're part of this church or you're new to this church or this is your first time, I highly encourage you—when you came in today, the Rooted communities, the Rooted groups—please make sure you're a part of that. You might have thought, "You know what? I'm too busy. I've got too many things going on. I don't really need community."

We were designed for relationships. We were built for relationship. We were meant for it, and I just highly encourage you to enter into it over time and see what it will do for you because who we're becoming is everything.

This leads us to number three, and that is this: Focus on your weekly and daily rhythms.

What's fascinating about this is that I believe if we do not pay attention, if we do not dictate the rhythms in our own home, the culture will dictate the rhythms for us. Your family will be driven by a schedule more than it will be your schedule that you want to have.

That's just the reality. That's the way the Western industrial complex, the culture we find ourselves in, has built it for us as families. Yet, I believe that God has given us a bigger vision for this. I believe he's given us a vision not to live out of exhaustion.

You remember the song "Living for the Weekend," right? We're not living for the weekend. My wife would be so embarrassed if she knew I was singing on stage.

We're not living for the weekend. We were designed to live from rest, not for rest. The Bible, in Genesis, when he created Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day. What did they do on the seventh? What was the very first thing they were tasked with? Rest.

I believe the Sabbath—Jesus says the Sabbath was not created for man, but man for the Sabbath. In other words, we as humans were created. The Sabbath was created so that we would experience rest. Yet, we just keep plowing through to the next thing, to the next thing, and we wake up going, "Man, I'm so exhausted. I have no margin."

I highly want to encourage you as a practice—one of the biggest practices that you can implement is a Sabbath. We practice it in our family from Friday night sundown to Saturday night sundown. Why? Because we defend that rhythm.

Now, I'm here this weekend, so we defend that rhythm. When I go home, we will do it again. We'll do it next week. We'll do our Shabbat dinner. We practice the Jewish Shabbat dinner, and then we do our Sabbath on Saturdays.

We keep that rhythm. So, we'll have Sabbath things on Monday, this, this, and that. The reason we do that is because we serve at our own church. We're very busy on Sundays, and we use that as a ramp-up day.

I just don't have time to get into all the ways that we have set our rhythm. I do have this book out there, *Famous at Home*. This is how we coach families in it. We have every day of the week named for our kids' sake, for our sake, so that we know what each day—every time we wake up—we know what that day is going to entail and what it's going to mean for our family.

I just highly encourage you to go back, even the daily rhythms. I would start with weekly, but even the daily rhythms. The Hebrew calendar begins in the evening. You'll notice in Genesis 1, it says, "First day began with evening, and then morning came." Day two: evening and then morning. Day three: evening and then morning.

Imagine starting your day with the most incredible meal of the day, which is dinner. Then God says, "Hey, I want you to get eight hours of sleep, and by the way, while you're sleeping, I'm going to be doing things in your life and preparing things for you that I want you to carry out the rest of the day."

One of the daily rhythms we just recently got back to is every single morning when we wake up, we pray as a family—three-year-old, nine-year-old, 11-year-old, and my 39-year-old wife and me as a 44-year-old. We get together as a family and we pray every single morning because it's a rhythm we know matters to us.

So, find the non-negotiable rhythm that's important for your family and implement it this school year so that you keep your "why" at the center. As you keep your "why" at the center, it will help you show up with "Oh, there you are," as opposed to "Hey, here I am, here I am."

This leads to the last one, and that is this: Spend time and be with the one saying, "Here I am."

In Isaiah chapter 65, this is the Lord's response to Isaiah. He says this: "I was sought by those who did not ask, and he's talking about Israel, the people of Israel. I was found by those who did not seek me. I said, 'Here I am, here I am,' to a nation that did not call on my name."

So often, what we end up doing in our culture is we end up picking up the things that give us significance. We focus on our "what" more than our "why." When we're feeling overwhelmed, when we're feeling like we don't have enough time, when we're feeling stressed, we get into our rhythms, we get into our activities, we do the things, and what we end up doing is we start—our Western industrial complex will individualize everything.

It doesn't bring the family together; it's meant to individualize everybody. This is why I encourage grandparents in here: continue to find ways that you can bring your kids and your grandkids together under your roof so that you build multi-generationally.

I believe that's what we are biblically to do: build multi-generationally. I just highly encourage us to think about ourselves, but we have to look at the rhythms that we're creating.

I want to close with this. As you think about spending time with Abba Father, that's how this happens. We love because he first loved us. He's crying out, but there's a picture here that I want to show you of my three-year-old son that I took not long ago, a few months ago, as we were out on a walk.

What you see here in this image is he's looking at garbage cans. There's a garbage truck down the road that's taking those garbage cans with its lift and dumping them in the trash. I remember wanting to take him on a walk, and I was so busy that day. I was thinking, "If I could just get him on a walk and get the dog out for a walk."

The dog is so excited about going for a walk. You know, if you have an animal, they're like, "Oh, they're so excited! My master's taking me for a walk!"

And he's sniffing along, and I'm trying to drag him. I'm like, "Come on, keep going, keep going, keep going!" Now, all of a sudden, because I've got to get back, I've got work to do, I've got things to do, we got—we're important, we got things happening, and come on, dog, come on, dog, come on, Micah, come on, Micah.

Micah stops, and he just stares at the garbage truck. In January, I took my phone and I deleted all social media apps. I deleted all web browsers. I have nothing on my phone to scroll anymore because I wanted to get off my phone. I didn't want my phone to be a distraction.

So, I didn't have my phone. I had my phone here, but in the past, there was nothing to scroll on it. In the past, I probably would have, as Micah was looking at these garbage trucks, pulled out my phone while Micah was looking at the trash.

Now, that's a phrase that'll preach! Instead, I just stood there and I snapped a picture because here's the reality: I think we, as a culture, have a difficult time slowing down and being with the one saying, "Here I am, here I am," because we're seeking our things rather than him and his things.

That's what fragments us, and we stop fighting for the heart of our spouse. We stop fighting for the heart of our kids. We stop seeing things from their perspective. We stop leading in grace and following in truth, and instead, we just lead with truth and we lead with this because we've got to move to the next thing.

All the while, everyone's crying out of their fight, flight, or freeze: "Here I am! See me! See me! See me!" In this moment, it was an opportunity for me to realize, in Ephesians 6:4, it says, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up by the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

In the Message version, it says this: "Fathers, do not provoke your kids to anger, but take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master."

I am so grateful that my Master doesn't just take my leash and lead me along. Instead, I have a Master who wants to spend time with me because he's saying, "Here I am. I see you."

So, with every eye closed and every head bowed, I just want to invite you this morning: If you don't know Jesus, I invite you this morning. I would love to talk to you. The prayer team will be down here. We would love to talk to you, to know him, to receive him into your heart.

If you had him in your heart before, but you're like, "Man, the ways of the world, the things of the world have just taken up my time, my energy. I feel so busy, but I need this Abba. I need this slow to anger, abounding. I need to experience that."

This morning, I just want to invite you to pray with me, and afterwards, we'd love to pray with you.

Let's all pray this prayer: "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. I have gone about things in my own way, and I can't do it anymore. I'm tired of shouting to you, 'God, here I am!' I need you, Lord. I invite you into my heart now. I confess that I am a sinner and in need of your grace and your mercy. Live within my heart. Restore to me the joy of my salvation so that I can love you and love my neighbor as myself, that I can enter into others' worlds going, 'Oh, there you are,' not because of anything on my own, but because of what you did for me.

It is by grace through faith that I am saved, and I invite you into my heart this day. In Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen."