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| Section: Basic Christian Living:
courses for new Christians |
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Growing in God |
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2. To Laugh and To Cry: |
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Emotional Freedom |
Feelings without Shame
We all have feelings. In general, the emotions are nearer
the surface in women, but men still have them—though they're more likely
than women to suppress their expression.
Accepting your emotions means finding a balance between
emotional expression and emotional control. This balance is within your
reach, with the Lord's help.
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Where
do emotions come from?
a. The image
of God in people
Emotion has its origin in the
nature of God himself. When he 'created man in his own image'
(Genesis 1:27) God built into human beings the emotional dimension
of his own being. His emotions include:
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 | Wrath (or anger). This is a fierce hatred of evil,
steady and continuous, not fits of temper: |
Psalm
7:11
'God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every
day.' See also Hebrews
3:7-11.
| Love. This love is no passing fancy; it's active
and consistent: 'God is love' (1 John 4:16).
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| Compassion. An ability to appreciate the sorrows
through which his people are passing: |
Psalm
145:8-9 'The
LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in
love. The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has
made.'
b. The example
of Jesus
The nature of God the Father
was perfectly expressed in Jesus. who has 'made him known'
(John 1:18). 'I always do what pleases him,' he claimed (John
8:29)—and this included his emotional expression. Notice,
among others:
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| Sorrow. At the tomb of Lazarus, 'Jesus wept'
(John 11:35). He shed tears, too, over the city of Jerusalem
as he foresaw the horrors of its destruction (Luke 19:41-44).
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| Anger. Jesus was forceful in his righteous anger.
Imagine his flashing eyes as he denounced the self-righteous:
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Matthew
23:27
'Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside
but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything
unclean.' When some Pharisees
opposed his healing work on the Sabbath, 'He looked round at
them in anger… deeply distressed at their
stubborn hearts' (Mark 3:5).
| Love. The New Testament is full of the love of Jesus,
ranging from his affection for individuals to his self-sacrificial
love for the church (see John 11:5; 13:1; Ephesians 5:25).
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| Compassion |
Mark
6:34 'When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion
on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.'
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| c.
The effects of sin
The image of God in human beings,
which is the source of our emotions, was tarnished by the
Fall. That's why there's so much emotional imbalance and
misdirection in people today.
But in Christ things are put
right. Now that you're born again and filled with the Holy Spirit,
your emotions can gradually find healing.
Factors governing
your emotions
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| Physiological. Glandular malfunctions and other
chemical deficiencies can have an adverse effect on your emotions.
All the more reason for maintaining a healthy body! But even
healthy folk vary greatly in the degree of emotion they feel.
God has made us all different.
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| Psychological. Knowing that on Friday you finish
work to go on holiday can give an emotional lift. So can falling
in love! Conversely, just as hard physical work leads to physical
tiredness, intense concentration (such as putting on a play or
taking part in some 'big day') leads to the emotional tiredness
of anticlimax-feeling depressed.
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| Behavioural. How we behave governs our feelings.
Cain gives us a good example: |
Genesis
4:4-7 'The
LORD looked with favour on Abel and his offering, but on Cain
and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very
angry, and his face was downcast. Then the LORD said to Cain,
"Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do
what is right, will you not be accepted?"'
That last sentence could more
literally be translated: 'If you do well, will not your countenance
be lifted up?' (NASB) or: 'If you had done the right thing, you
would be smiling' (Good News Bible).
Bad behaviour (sin) produces
bad feelings, which are expressed in frowns and angry looks.
Right behaviour, on the other hand, produces good feelings, expressed
in smiles. More on this later.
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The
dangers of uncontrolled emotion
a. A roller-coaster
existence
Feelings are largely unpredictable.
They come and go, high and low. So if you let your feelings dictate
how you act, you'll have a life of instability.
See the tragedy of uncontrolled
feeling in the life of David's son, Amnon (2 Samuel 13). First
he 'fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom'
(v1). A slave to his own passion, he eventually raped her (v14).
Then his emotions did a rapid turnabout:
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2
Samuel 13:15
'Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated
her more than he had loved her.'
In the end, Amnon's failure
to control his feelings led to his own violent death (v28-29,
32).
b. Unsociability
People who are a prey to their
emotions will find few friends. Who wants to get close to a person
who's prone to moodiness, explosions of temper and unpredictable
'highs'?
c. Sickness
Emotional states and bodily
functions are closely related. Anxiety can put you off your food.
Worry can bring you out in a rash, and…
Proverbs
14:30 'A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones
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Healthy, Christlike
emotions are a source of physical well-being but ungodly, sin-provoked
emotions attack good health. Read Psalm 32:1-5 and see how David's
sin affected his health. Notice that confession and forgiveness
made him feel 'blessed', that is, happy.
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Controlling
your feelings
Control doesn't mean suppression.
To blow up with anger is clearly wrong but to clam up, keeping
the anger inside, is just as wrong. Implosion is no less
harmful in the long run than explosion.
Nor does control mean adopting
a stoical, 'stiff upper lip' approach, or even regarding your
emotions as private property. Good emotions are to be both expressed
and shared:
Romans
12:15
'Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.'
Control means bringing your
emotions to a place of proper balance in your life so
that you're like Jesus. How can you do this?
a. Imitate
the divine emotions
Actively copy your heavenly
Father, who longs for his children to be like him (Ephesians
5:1). See from Scripture his active love, which reaches
out and takes the initiative; his righteous anger that
burns against sin and injustice; his compassion towards
the weak and helpless; his sadness over people's waywardness
and refusal to repent. Cultivate the same emotions yourself.
Notice the feelings that God
does not have—bitterness and malice, for instance—and
eradicate them from your own heart (see Ephesians 4:31).
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Actively copy
Christ. He wept at a graveside, so you can do the same. He
denounced hypocrisy in passionately expressed terms; so can you.
His face expressed genuine love towards an enquirer whom he probably
met only once (Mark 10:21); so can yours. He was the perfect
person and his emotional life was rich. Imitate him with confidence.
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b. Renewing
your mind
Before you were saved, your
thought-patterns were those of the world. But now that you're
a Christian your thought-life needs to be gradually renewed so
that you think the way God thinks:
Romans
12:2
'Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you
will be able to test and approve what God's will is-his good,
pleasing and perfect will.'
How you think governs the way
you feel, so if you're to be godly you must think God's thoughts.
Soak yourself, then, in the Scriptures until your thinking is
renewed.
Here's an example. As you feed
on the Word of God, you'll become increasingly aware of God's
hatred for sin. What the world writes off as unimportant—'nobody's
perfect', 'it's a white lie' or 'everybody's doing it'—you'll
come to hate as God hates. The things that break God's heart
will begin to break yours, and in your emotional life you'll
come to appreciate what Jesus meant when he said: 'Blessed are
those who mourn' (Matthew 5:4).
c. Obey
the Lord
Everybody wants to be happy,
and happiness comes chiefly from doing what is right.
That's something you can choose to do. To a large degree,
therefore, happiness lies within your own control. Jesus was
the happiest man who ever lived, because he was the most righteous:
Hebrews
1:8-9
'About the Son he says,..."You have loved righteousness
and hated wickedness ; therefore God, your God, has set you above
your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy."'
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Doctors have
shown that there are two sides to our nervous system. One side
is the involuntary side: it's linked to our bodily glands
and organs; it's subject to a variety of emotions that seem to
come and go as they please; and it's outside our immediate control.
The other side is within our control. It's to do with
our minds, our wills and what we do with our bodies. It's the
behaviour side.
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In this latter area you can
make changes. As you do what's right here, there's a knock-on
effect into the other area—that of the emotions. Right
actions, in other words, produce right emotions!
Psalm
34:12-14
'Whoever
of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep
your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn
from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.'
Whenever you 'do good' you'll
have one of those 'good days'. For you, doing good might mean:
get out of the armchair and help your wife in the kitchen; list
all the jobs you have to do and get started; check your current
financial situation to see if you're still 'in the black'; go
to the meeting, even though you don't feel like it; ask Bill's
forgiveness for your cutting words to him.
'Do whatever Jesus tells you'
(John 2:5) is the key to emotional miracles no less amazing than
the changing of water into wine. How about it?
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