The Emotional pathway lets us meet God in holy experiences. God is all around us everyday, and He created us to live in direct experiential communion with Him. We have this God receptor that was jammed-by us-by our sin and our sinful nature. Indeed, much of the sin that we pursue is an attempt to fill the gaps left by the lost experience of that communion with God. Satan and the world often offer us superficial but ultimately empty experiences that ensnare us through an appeal to our innate desire for divine ecstasy. It is as if we took the antenna on our radio and badly damaged it. Through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, our antenna is restored, but a busy and noisy world still tries to break in and jam the signal. Our radio works, but we have to put forth deliberate effort to find still and quiet places to hear that distant voice. Children experience the world through color, music, warmth, and taste. We are called to come to Jesus in this childlike way. When we set aside our adult inhibitions and our false sense of propriety, we open the door to experience the full-on power of the Holy Spirit. Celebratory worship, singing, retreats, art, nature, and the sacraments are some of the ways that we set aside ourselves and reach out to God with our spirits. When you are doing these things, ask God what He wants to say to you. Ask God how you can serve Him. Once you've asked these questions, listen.

The central tenet of the Emotional pathway must be rooted in biblical and traditional truths. If we practice experience outside of the truthful framework, we are easy prey for Satan's deceptions. Our scripture, our faith, and our Christian community all help in discerning experiential acts of worship that are aligned with God's will. We seek pleasure in tasks and in distractions. We like to work or play or watch movies or solve puzzles, but the emotional pathway is a pathway of stopping and sensing. We long to be back in the arms of our Father, and the experiential pathway acknowledges this longing and moves us towards those ever-waiting open arms.