E.1-4: Faith, Fire, and the Psyche: Why God Meets You in the Flames
Season 1: Episode 4
Faith, Fire, and the Psyche: Why God Meets You in the Flames
In this episode you will learn:
🔥 Why your curated Christian identity might be what’s holding you back
🧠 How Jung’s concept of “psychic time” mirrors the eternal rhythm of God
💬 What it means to chase the Spirit — not a system
✝️ Why individuation is not rebellion, but restoration
Episode length: 11:00
can’t get enough? sign up for free 5-day email series here
Transcript
Today I’m going to tell you a story of a woman working with Carl Jung who shed the good Christian image she had carefully created, in order to discover a more real and loving version of herself.
In doing so, she stumbled across the mission statement of Jesus in John 10:10: I have come to give you life, and life abundant.
Individuation isn’t self-help. Holiness isn’t performance.
Both are about transformation.
And both begin when something inside you… starts to burn. It’s time to Awaken Holy Wonder.Stay with me.
parable of the talents
Hans Urs von Balthasar once said:
"What you are is God's gift to you. What you become is your gift to God."
Jesus shared a parable of the man who gave money to his servants and left for a long time. While he was gone, he expected his servants to make something of the money he gave them. The one who just hid his money, however got the wrath of the landowner.
If you don’t know how to develop and grow the gifts that God gave you, you are not alone. This is where Jung’s tool sets come in handy to help us.
For the last few podcasts, I’ve been talking about the use of dreams to understand what our psyche is telling us. Maybe this is new to you as a Christian. But it was definitely not new to the characters in the Bible. In fact over one-third of our Bible is dreams and prophecies – in other words it’s the way that God is speaking to us about our calling.
einstein and jung
Let me tell you a story from science — but listen to it like a parable.
When Albert Einstein was just sixteen years old,
he had a waking vision — almost like a dream.
He imagined himself sledding through space…
riding alongside a beam of light.
And the question rose in him,
simple and strange:
“What would the world look like if I moved at the speed of light?”
That one image —
a boy chasing light —
became the seed of his life’s work.
It led to theories that would reshape physics, time, and space itself.
It started with a symbol.
A sacred image that rose not from logic — but from imagination.
From what Jung would call the unconscious.
What I might call the Spirit.
You see, when we talk about individuation —
or holiness —
we’re not talking about productivity or virtue.
We’re talking about revelation.
Something being revealed to you…
that has always lived within you.
Einstein’s light was scientific.
But it was also sacred.
he didn’t chase a formula.
He chased an image.
And that image led his life’s work.
Before the theory of relativity was published…
before Jung had fully formed his model of the psyche…
these two – Jung and Einstein - met in Zürich — two young minds, pacing the same questions.
And what did they talk about?
Time.
Einstein told Jung that time was not fixed.
That it could bend, stretch, shift — depending on speed, gravity, and perspective.
And something clicked for Jung.
Jung had already been watching time behave strangely —
in dreams, in visions, in trauma, in healing.
Where past and future overlap.
Where something eternal breaks into the present.
Einstein discovered it in the cosmos.
Jung discovered it in the soul.
And those conversations stayed with Jung —
for decades.
Later, he would say:
“This idea of relativity gave me the first inkling that the psyche might also have its own time — its own rhythm.”
life in the spirit
And maybe…
when you step into individuation —
into holiness —
you start to move in that rhythm, too.
Not the time of clocks…
but the time of Spirit.
You see individuation means that your best self is an inventor, or artist, or theologian. But you won’t know unless you allow the Holy Spirit to have language with you…like your night dreams.
“Why does a teenage physicist’s dream belong in a spiritual podcast? Because God doesn’t just speak in dreams to prophets — He plants symbolic images in anyone willing to wonder.”It’s not about perfect theology. It’s about letting go of roles, masks, and religious performance.
Are you doing Christianity to be good? Or to become who God wants you to be?
Pharisaical religion polishes the outer self. Life in the Spirit transforms the inner one. And that inner one is usually way more interesting than the one you are trying to be
Reflection Prompt
What rises up in you that feels false?
Where did it come from? And… what would it cost to let it go?
dealing with depression
A woman came to Jung with depression, numbness, and a deep sense of unreality. She had done everything "right" — school, marriage, personal image. But it felt hollow. She wasn’t sick. She was spiritually starved.
She brought a dream: She was in a dark forest. In a clearing stood a radiant figure — flaming, terrifying.
“And then… she hears a voice. Not loud, but unmistakable.” “This is who you are… if you dare to become her.”
She woke up shaken. Not because of the fire — but because she knew it was true.
Jung told her:
"The individuated Self often appears overwhelming, because it’s so much greater than the roles we’ve played. But if you want to be whole… you must step into it."
And she did. She shed the persona of the polite churchgoer. She started writing poetry, studying mysticism, speaking from her soul. Her relationships changed. Some ended. Some deepened.
She said:
"I’m not trying to be a better person anymore. I’m trying to be a real one. And somehow, that’s made me more loving than I’ve ever been."
“That dream image — the radiant Self — is the soul’s way of reflecting Jesus words: I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly. But to claim that life, you may first have to leave the one you’ve curated.”
That’s holiness. Not flawlessness. Wholeness. Not virtue signaling. Soul awakening.
💬 Personal Story
There came a moment when I moved from an Evangelical expression of faith into a Charismatic one.
And I lost people. Friends. Community.
But here’s what I learned: individuation will often strip you of the culture you were born into, even the Christian one.
Not to leave you alone — but to open you up.
To ideas that stretch you. To God’s voice — not filtered through culture, but through His Holy Spirit.
Consider and journal this idea: What mask are you still wearing because it keeps you safe in church, but small in your soul?”
🙌 Call to Action
In the Christian Jung Community, we go deeper into what this process looks like — step by sacred step.
Come join us at AngelaMeer.com. We would love to have you.
🔥 Theological and Jungian Integration
Hebrews 12:29 says:
"Our God is a consuming fire."
Fire destroys. But it also refines.
That flame? It’s not meant to annihilate you. It’s meant to consume what isn’t really you.
Jung once said:
"A genuine encounter with the numinous is a defeat for the ego."
But that defeat is the beginning of becoming real.
God doesn’t want the polished, performative version of you. He wants the one He created — the one buried beneath fear, approval, and expectation.
Individuation is stepping into that fire. Holiness is what happens when you stop running from it.
🌿 Reflection Invitation
Take time today to sit with this question: Where is God asking me to step into the fire?
He doesn’t promise to take you around it.
He promises to meet you in it.
Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego — who chose the fire over compromise — and met God in the flames.
And once they realized He was with them? They didn’t want to leave.
💠 Membership Seed
We dive deeper into these sacred processes inside the paid Christian Jung Community. Membership opens only a few times per year — find us at AngelaMeer.com.
Next episode, we’re talking about the persona — the character we play to survive, to belong, to impress.
And what it means to lay it down.
We’re here every week, walking this path with you — where faith meets soul and Spirit breathes through psychology.
🎧 Closing Contemplation + Prayer
Now, let’s take a few minutes of silence. Sit. Listen. Let God show you… what needs to burn.
And we’ll close with the words of St. Augustine:
“Lord, let me know myself. Let me know You. And let me see the places where I hide from both.”
Amen.