The emotional intelligence of Jesus

French poet Jean de La Fontaine, said 'He who knows the universe and doesn't know himself knows nothing.' This is a profound statement. Some believe that emotional intelligence is more important than IQ. They are not saying that IQ is not important. What they are saying is for our life, for our relationships, for our success, emotional intelligence is even more important. And I agree with that. You probably know some people that were not so good in school but became very successful in life. And you also know some who were very good at school but not so successful in life. What is the reason? The reason is emotional intelligence.

What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage our emotions, as well as to recognise and influence the emotions of those around us. To simplify: Emotional intelligence is how you deal with yourself and how you relate to others. Emotional intelligence has four parts: self-awareness, self-management, other awareness (compassion) and other management (relationships).

We can learn a lot from Jesus about emotional intelligence, although He never used this term. When we read the Gospels, when we read the book the Desire of Ages by Ellen G. White, we can see that Jesus had very, very high emotional intelligence.

Self-awareness
Jesus is twelve years of age, He is at the temple and after everything was finished his parents left and they were thinking, 'Jesus must be around, He is with family or friends.' And then at the end of the first day they are asking, 'Where is Jesus?' They looked everywhere, but they could not find Him. They returned to Jerusalem and after three days they found Him in the temple. Mary asked, 'how could you leave us?' And Jesus said, 'don't you know, I had to be in my father's house' (and He is not referring to Joseph, who is His stepfather, He is referring to God as his father). So, Jesus at the age of twelve knows who He is. He has self-awareness and this is the foundation of emotional intelligence. If we don't have good self-awareness, we will not have high emotional intelligence: we will struggle to understand ourselves, to deal with what is happening within us, and we will have problems in our relationships.

There are a lot of books on emotional intelligence, with good advice, but the big difference is that Christian authors have their emotional intelligence God-centered. Secular books on emotional intelligence start without good self-awareness, since God is not there. So, I would advise you to read Christian books on emotional intelligence, and what is even more important is to read the Gospels to learn from the master on emotional intelligence.

In the Temptations you can see all four aspects of emotional intelligence. The devil shows up like an angel of Good and he says to Jesus, 'there was somebody in heaven who was thinking that he is the son of God, but he was thrown to the earth, are you sure that you are the son of God?' Just forty days before, when Jesus was baptised, God the Father confirmed that Jesus is the son of God. If Jesus had low self-awareness, He would be like, 'Oh, I don't know, I think I am.' Jesus has high self-awareness. He is the son of God. And then look at Jesus’ self-management. He was fasting for forty days, and then the devil said, 'Here are the stones, you believe that you are the son of God, turn them into food, you need food, otherwise you are going to die.' But Jesus, who is very hungry, is doing an excellent job with self-management. In how Jesus is dealing with the devil you can see that Jesus is other-aware and He knows how to deal with others.

There are many emotions people manifest but there are three of them that are very present in our life: anger, fear, and sadness. Jesus is cleansing the temple. You can see He is upset; He is angry seeing what they are doing with the temple. He is making a whip. Notice, He is taking time to make a whip. When we are angry, we explode, we don’t think. Why? Because our anger comes out of pride or selfishness or both. However, Jesus’ anger comes out of love. That's why Jesus is different. Jesus is facing fear when He is at Gethsemane. He doesn’t run away but He faces his fear. At Lazarus’ grave Jesus experiences sadness.

Four friends have brought a paralysed man to Jesus. Instead of healing him He forgave his sins. Why? Because the man’s number one wish was to be forgiven, while the second one was to be healed. Jesus is aware of this. Then there was a deaf and mute man. He was struggling to speak because he was deaf, and people, I'm sure, were laughing at him. Jesus took him outside. He didn't want people to laugh at him again. You can see Jesus showing compassion, not just sympathy – knowing what somebody is going through; or empathy – knowing and feeling what somebody is going through, but compassion. Or when people brought a woman caught in adultery, you can see how Jesus is managing others. Firstly, He ignores them, then He writes their sins on the sand, and then He says, 'Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.'

Emotional intelligence is very, very important. Jesus practised it, so we should copy Him and grow in our emotional intelligence because it will help us deal with what is happening inside us, and it will help us to have good relationships with other people. Let’s learn from the Master, Jesus Christ!