“Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah”
Psalm 62:8, NKJV
Our emotions are a difficult thing and most of us have never been taught how to properly process our emotions nor have we been taught how to 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 or play (or sometimes both)
- embracing certain emotions while ignoring others
- allowing our emotions to be manipulated by the influence and expectations of those we look up to
- 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. As Christians, it is important to understand how God views our emotions.
Some Christians view emotions as something to be controlled and never given into. Yet, the one man in the Bible who is called a “man after God’s own heart,” King David, was very much in touch with his own emotions. He was a musician and a poet and he regularly took his emotions 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 to raise the woman’s son to life. But, Jesus didn’t just empathize with the pain of the people He loved. 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. Yet, His friends let Him down and while they slept, He was alone with no one to turn to but His Father, crying out to Him and begging for a different path. His last act before He died on the cross was an act of compassion for His own mother, ensuring that she would be taken care of by another friend named John.
God created our emotions and 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 – with absolutely everything. He wants to be our refuge. Open up your heart to the One who created You and who knows everything about you and let Him be all of this for you. He will not fail you.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021-2022 Cindy Koen
