Emotional Honesty

Luke 22:42-44

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Psalm 34:17-20

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.

Psalm 147:3

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

2 Corinthians 12:9

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Psalm 30:11

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

Have you ever thought that desiring something other than God’s will was sinful? That your emotions were ungodly? And that your struggle to desire the right things made you a weak Christian? I have. Many times I have avoided God for fear that disagreeing with Him meant I would be completely rejected. I was scared of His presence because I thought my emotions were sinful and I was bound in a lie that He only met with fanatical Christians who never said a curse word or questioned where he was leading them. I allowed my own brokenness to determine how much of myself I gave to God rather than allowing my brokenness to be the reason I gave everything to Him. We are called to obedience, to consistently pursue holy lives as the Spirit changes and directs us, but I don’t think that’s really the point. The point is surrender and complete acceptance of our brokenness before Christ. After that, God takes care of the rest. He walks with us, convicts us, and changes us. We don’t have the power to reroute our desires on our own. Isn’t that a relief? Coming from someone who used to be a control freak, it is a relief that God actually desires to take that burden from me. All I have to be is honest.

I have recently struggled with this in my desire for a child. I felt angry that the process isn’t as easy as I had hoped. I blamed others and I blamed God. On top of that, I told myself that all my feelings were wrong and I was ashamed at how ungodly I felt my pain was. I oscillated between self-talk to “have more faith” and wallowing in my resentment, all the while actually avoiding the only place of rest, my Papas arms. I felt God would be as ashamed of me as I was of myself and how “dishonoring I had been in my heart and mind”.

If you reread Luke 22 above you will see that Jesus’ human will actually differed from the Father’s will. He did not want to die and he was so overwhelmed that “his sweat became like great drops of blood.” I don’t believe this visual is figurative. It is an actual condition called “Hematohidrosis…… a condition in which capillary blood vessels that feed the sweat glands rupture, causing them to exude blood, occurring under conditions of extreme physical or emotional stress” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810702/). There is no other cause for this condition other than “extreme stress.” It is largely unexplainable and very rare. Can you imagine being so distraught over God’s will that you sweat blood? We also see God incarnate pleading for a different scenario. This wasn’t just anyone. This is Jesus, with perfection and all the power of the universe at His fingertips, desiring a different outcome for His life. Wow, I’m in awe just writing this at how deceived I have often been. What this proves to me is that it is human to desire what we desire, not sinful. However, what we see by way of obedience is that Jesus submitted to the Father’s will even though it wasn’t what he wanted. The question of obedience is in our actions and in our submission, not in our human emotion. Even Jesus needed encouragement to do what God asked. The angels came to give him the strength to continue to pray and face what God had called Him to do because He was in “agony”.  This is God’s will for us as well I believe, that we would feel and face every emotion on our knees, not censoring them but giving them all to God so that He can change us and strengthen us to do His will. God created our emotions. He knit us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13) and he already knows. Our pain is His pain and He longs to show us a way through it.

There are many verses in Scripture (some listed above) where we see reference to our imperfection, brokenness, and sadness as God sees it, an opportunity for His faithfulness and comfort, not a place of condemnation. Judgement of ourselves and our emotions; the feeling that what we desire is disgraceful and dishonoring; this is not how God sees us or our human experiences. It is how we have perceived God based on lies and cultural expectation. Our Father longs to give us insight into our motives and change them so that we can experience all the peace He has to offer. The Holy Spirit is referred to as our counselor (John 14:26) and He is more acquainted with our inner lives than anyone else, including us.

A great illustration of this is the story of Jonah. He actually told God no when He was given a specific task but God lovingly continued to pursue him even though his heart was rebellious. I believe a major theme in the book of Jonah is the trust and connection God was trying to build in their relationship. He accepted Jonah’s temper tantrums and put him in a space (the whale) of seeing God’s protection and grace instead of just moving on. Our Papa never just moves on. We can take a cue from Jonah and speak honestly with our maker, not trying to hide one emotion or thought. He can accept and transform them all. More importantly, He has work for us to do, specific work, and He longs for us to be emotionally free as we pursue it. Jonah’s rebellion and running away put him in the belly of a whale, not simply the feeling of apprehension, and even in that experience God was protecting him and waiting for him to call out. His emotions actually led him back to his creator. What emotions have you been withholding today?

Picture Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00wdnz1