Trusting God With Our Emotions
Most of us have never been taught how to properly process difficult emotions or respond to the emotions of others in healthy and constructive ways. Some unhealthy emotional coping mechanisms that I have seen and/or experienced myself are:
hiding from our emotions by burying ourselves in work, play, and/or relationships
embracing certain emotions while ignoring others
allowing our emotions to be manipulated by the influence and expectations of others
being overly controlled by our emotions
ignoring our emotions altogether
Entire books have been written on this topic alone and for good reason. Our emotional health affects every area of our lives including our mental health, our relationships, and even our physical health.
Some Christians view emotions as something to be controlled and never given into. Yet, the Bible is full of examples of people recognizing their emotions and taking them to God. In Psalm 62:8, David implores us to trust God enough to pour out our hearts to Him and to run to Him as a refuge in difficult times. This is one of my favorite verses. It makes me think of sitting and crying and talking things out with a close friend - someone who is listening, not in judgment waiting to criticize me, but with love and compassion because that friend loves me, knows my heart, and understands what I am going through.
That is what God wants to be for each one of us. When we are alone in our pain, God is there. When we have no one to turn to, we can turn to Him. When it feels like no one else could possibly understand, God does.
When God came down to dwell among His creation, He frequently demonstrated this compassion and empathy.
When the religious leaders brought the woman caught in adultery and threw her at Jesus' feet, ready to stone her to death, Jesus offered love and grace.
When a woman who was ostracized by society went to draw water from the well at a time when she knew no one else should be there, Jesus went out of His way to sit with her.
When a mother was walking with the coffin of her only son who had just died, compassion compelled Jesus to stop what He was doing and raise the woman's son to life.
But, Jesus didn't just empathize with the pain of others. He experienced pain Himself. The Son of God took on human flesh, in part, so that He could feel everything we feel. He understands our pain because He experienced human pain. He understands our joy because He experienced human joy. He understands every emotion we will ever feel because He felt those emotions too. He wept when Lazarus died. He tried to get away by himself when His cousin and friend, John, was executed. He begged His friends to sit and pray with Him during the final hours before His death. When His friends fell asleep, Jesus was alone with no one to turn to but His Father. He cried out to God the same way we do and pleaded for a different path. Jesus’ last act before He died on the cross was one of compassion for His mother, undoubtedly born from human emotions of concern and worry.
God not only created our emotions - He lived with them in human flesh on this planet for 33 years. He gets it. Sometimes, He is the only one who does. He wants to be the one we run to first with our fears, our pain, our anxiety, our joy, our dreams, and every other emotion we experience. He wants to be our refuge. So why not open up your heart to the One who created You? He knows everything about you and He will not fail you.