What God Says About Our Emotions

Do your emotions ever leave you feeling guilty, ashamed, or doubting the strength of your faith? Ever wonder why you can’t shake the anger you feel about your situation or why fear creeps up at every turn? Do you find yourself thinking, I must be a weak Christian for not trusting God more? Or perhaps you try to convince yourself you’re not hurting, depressed, or anxious–believing you can somehow sidestep the pressing guilt and shame.

Do you fall on the other end of the spectrum.? I just don’t have time to deal with my feelings right now. I’ll do it later when life slows down. Surely they’ll disappear if I ignore them, right?

As Christians, emotions can be incredibly complicated, making them woefully misunderstood. Yet, if we don’t sort through them properly based on Biblical truths, we’ll inadvertently give them power to reduce life to a dismal, empty existence.

It wasn’t until I faced my own out-of-control, highly demanding emotions after I lost my 15-year-old son, Dalton, that I started paying more attention to and asking important questions about what the Bible really says about these uninvited guests. Boy, did I have a lot of misconceptions to unravel!

It started with, Why do we have emotions anyway?  

Well, God very intentionally created us with feelings so we can experience the fullness of His love for us and then share His love with people around us. 

Additionally, God knit us together as social beings, capable of forming deep, meaningful relationships with fellow humans. The capacity to feel allows us to relate to and connect with others.

From a more technical standpoint, our emotions are the body’s check engine light. They serve as a signal telling us to pay attention to what’s going on inside. When victims of childhood abuse or adults who suffered trauma, such as myself, experience fear or anger in the face of triggering thoughts or events, it doesn’t mean we lack trust in God. Our body is doing EXACTLY what our Creator intended-warn us of danger. These “smoke detectors” should call us to action, not silence us with avoidance.

The Bible is full of people who experienced emotions. Even Jesus demonstrated emotions throughout his earthly life. It’s no surprise that he felt positive emotions such as joy, compassion, empathy, love, and forgiveness. But he also experienced negative emotions, as well–exhaustion from the demands of his ministry, anger at the hypocrisy of the religious, sorrow over sin and death, disgust at the sight of greed, racism, and oppression, and agony as he faced his own brutal death on the cross. Yet, he remained perfect. Not because he was perfectly skilled at warding off distressing emotions from entering his heart. Jesus was a human who also didn’t get to choose the emotional response to overwhelming situations in his life. But Jesus was always faithful to process his difficult emotions with His perfect Heavenly Father. Thus, his emotions never led to sinful actions or damaging, secondary emotions.

Confusion arises when we overgeneralize that all negative emotions, including anger, fear, frustration, and despair, are sinful the minute they enter our heart. We have to go back to why we have emotions in the first place. God gave them to us as an internal alarm system so we know when to stop and care for our emotional and mental well-being, which, in turn, significantly impacts our spiritual health. 

The initial emotional response our brains have to life’s distressing events aren’t always a choice. But what we do with those emotions makes all the difference. Three options exist.

First, oppressing or avoiding our feelings because we believe they’re sinful or because we don’t want to expose our soul to their sharp, slicing blades leads to added layers of more destructive, enslaving emotions (bitterness, pride, hatred, shame, paralyzing fear, numbness, resentment, apathy). The initial response wasn’t ungodly. But the undealt with emotions pave the way for sinful substitutes to spread their roots.

When we numb painful emotions with harmful substances, risky behaviors, or never-ending distractions, we numb ourselves to EVERY other emotion including exactly the ones we’ll need so we can manage our distress–love, acceptance, encouragement, and support.

Second, we often allow unprocessed, overwhelming emotional responses to lead us into sinful behavior. Consider Abraham’s wife, Sarah, in the book of Genesis. Scripture describes the intense fear she experienced over her inability to conceive. God promised to bless Abraham as the Father of many nations. But I’m barren. God understood the initial fear that emerged in Sarah as a result of her devastating reality. But what she did because of her fear is where she went wrong. Rather than waiting on God’s timing, Sarah sinned, taking matters into her own hands to see to it that God’s promise would be fulfilled through Abraham.

This story confirms that our feelings are valid, but they aren’t facts and must always be managed. They don’t give us permission to be disobedient or treat others cruelly. We can feel our feelings. But we don’t have to give them power to control how we live. 

To examine the final, and only God-honoring response to our emotions, let’s look at a couple of examples in the Bible. Samuel’s mother, Hannah, also felt fear and despair over being unable to have a child just as Sarah had (1 Samuel 1:1-20). Scripture tells us she was “deeply troubled” while feeling “great anguish and grief” over this condition. Feeling anguish and grief didn’t prove her lack of faith that God would take care of her needs. It proved she was a human living in a world full of pain and loss. But who Hannah took this grief to is what deemed her as blameless in this situation. Sarah took matters into her own hands. But Hannah “poured out her soul to the Lord.” Through lament (a prayer in pain modeled in Jeremiah, Psalms, Job, Lamentations, Isaiah, and Habakkuk to name a few), God invites all His children to bring our emotions straight to Him, our Healer (Jehovah Rapha). That’s precisely what Hannah did. God didn’t scold his daughter for being afraid. He lovingly invited her to abide in His presence. Hannah began noticing evidence of God’s healing touch. “Her face was no longer downcast” didn’t happen AFTER she got what she wanted, presents from God. The healing process began when she rested in His presence BEFORE her fervent prayers were answered with a long-awaited pregnancy (1 Samuel 1:18). Hannah wasn’t permanently healed of her distress. Crying out to the Lord would be a necessary, ongoing practice throughout her entire life. This is true for you and me, as well. 

It’s important to note that God doesn’t always heal our wounds in the blink of an eye. Often, His timing is a process He lovingly uses to demonstrate His faithful character. And some wounds will never be fully healed on this side of Heaven. The unhealed ache will serve as a permanent invitation for us to abide in His love and grace that make it possible to live with meaning and purpose in spite of the residual pain.

Even when we’re taking actionable steps to heal our pain, we don’t always get to decide the timing of our healing. But we do always get to decide who we rest in while we wait for God’s healing.

Hannah’s story parallels our own parenting experiences. When our kids are afraid, we don’t wave our finger in their face and command them to stop feeling frightened. Instead, we tenderly embrace them and remind them they don’t need to be scared because we’re there to comfort them. Or we might offer them courage to stand tall against their giant. I don’t for a second believe God sees us as sinful the minute fear arises (although sin can be born when we give fear the power to paralyze us from doing what God calls us to). “Do not fear” wasn’t meant to be the eleventh commandment. I believe our Heavenly Father graciously understands our human tendencies and whispers, “I understand. You don’t have to be afraid. I’m right here.” 

Moses is another powerful example to use when considering emotions. Moses and the Israelites wandered in an extremely miserable wilderness for forty years. Fear and complaints were definitely widespread and abundant. I can’t say I would have behaved much differently. It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert, they cried. Both Moses and the Israelites questioned, feared, doubted, and complained about their existence. The Israelites were sinful in God’s sight. But Moses? He remained righteous. How could the exact same response produce two opposing outcomes? Once again, the difference has everything to do with who they took their grievances to. The Israelites turned to Moses while Moses turned to God. As mentioned earlier, God invites us to bring our pain directly to Him in honest lament. He knows our heart anyway. Let’s face it. He’s the only one that can do anything about our suffering. He is quite aware, more than anyone, of the overwhelming reality of living in a sin-soaked world. That’s why He sent His Son, Jesus. 

Before you shame yourself about negative emotions that enter your heart, give thought to these Biblical characters. Don’t run and hide from your feelings or wrestle them on your own strength. Acknowledge them. Process them with God in lament AND, when possible, with a trusted person who listens without criticism or condemnation. Manage them or they will manage you. 

Every aspect of life begs us to live in one of two ditches. Emotions are certainly no different. We must resist taking up residence in the ditch where our emotions rule with supreme power, influencing all of our words and actions. But we also can’t live in the ditch of oppression, running from the once-stuffed emotions that finally caught up with us. Neither ditch is healthy or sustainable. 

Our Wonderful Counselor paves a straight yet narrow path centered between the ditches of over-expression and repression . Sometimes we’ll swerve to one side or the other. And once in a while, we may even fall in. I know I still do on occasion! Our goal should never be to extinguish our emotions. It should always be to lean on the Holy Spirit as we examine their role and express our need for help with them.

For further reading about lament, here are two blog posts I wrote that might be helpful.

Learning the Language of Lament: What and Why

Learning the Language of Lament: Putting It Into Practice

PRACTICAL TRUTHS ABOUT EMOTIONS TO SHARE WITH CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

Our emotions are an invitation for us to draw close to God so He can help us process them rather than engage in hurtful actions as a result of them.

Our emotions don’t give us permission to be disrespectful or cruel to others. A mantra we can repeat when needed: I can be gracious even when I’m afraid. Or, I can be respectful even when I’m mad.

We don’t always get a choice in the emotions we feel. But we do always get a choice in what we do with those emotions. And the Holy Spirit wants to help.

Our emotions are the check engine light for what’s going on inside our body. Don’t ignore their warnings and alerts.

In some situations, suspected cases of depression turn out to be cases of oppression. When we stuff our feelings through avoidance, they grow into creatures too massive to control, making us feel depressed and anxious (The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller). Note: This depression and anxiety are NOT to be confused with diagnoses of clinical depression and anxiety disorder.)

The only emotions that can’t be healed are the ones we hide. This doesn’t mean you should wave a banner around that’s plastered with your feelings. It encourages you to find ONE trusted person who will listen with validation but without judgment or condemnation.

Your feelings are valid. You aren’t wrong for feeling the way you do. But they aren’t facts that should lead us around either. We have to examine them, hold them up to the light, process them, and decide how much power they deserve in our life.

We can feel our feelings. But we don’t have to give them power to control how we live. 

Numbing our emotions with dangerous substances or activities keeps us from recognizing they’re affecting our life. If we can’t feel them, we won’t get help to heal them.

When we numb painful emotions with harmful substances, risky behaviors, or never-ending distractions, we numb EVERY other emotion including the very ones we’ll need so we can manage our distress–love, acceptance, encouragement, and support.

Manage your emotions or they will manage you.