Embracing Emotion

Emotions are powerful and intense, complex and rich. They are a beautiful part of who God made us to be

The psalms are full of expressed emotions of loneliness, sorrow, love, joy, discouragement, pain, regret, shame, delight, fear and a whole host more

Expressing emotion is key to finding freedom and yet walking through this process either ourselves or when helping others can sometimes be a struggle.

Some of us are more in touch with our emotions and find tears flow easily whereas others of us find it harder to express emotion for all kinds of reasons

As a child I grew up in a house of mood swings and silences and where love was measured by performance. I learned to suppress emotion and when tears occasionally burst forth like an uncontrollable flood I was told to stop crying. As a result I learned to shut down my emotions because I felt ashamed.

When I became a Christian I struggled to ‘receive’ Christ because I couldn’t feel his love and I believed the lie that there was something wrong with me and that maybe God didn’t love me

I often measured my relationship with God according to my feelings despite knowing that his love is unconditional and received by faith.

My relationship became like a yoyo so that when I was doing well I felt good about myself and believed God was pleased with me but when I wasn’t doing well I believed God was displeased with me and distant. Connecting with the Father I found difficult and especially when on my own. With a disconnection in my heart I learned to embrace God with my mind more than experiencing him from my heart.

I remember a time of breakthrough. It was a moment of revelation. We were singing the hymn ‘Here is Love’ by Matt Redman and as I sang the line ‘He kissed a guilty world in love’ God showed me that a kiss is the most intimate expression of love and I began to cry as I realised his affection for me. This was the beginning of my journey rediscovering intimacy.

We cannot praise God without our emotions being involved. The gospel permeates into our emotions and the expression of these emotions glorifies God

We need to embrace our emotions in a healthy way both in our relationship with God and our relationship with others whilst not allowing them to trump truth?

God doesn’t want anything less than our genuine authenticity. After all He knows it all already!

So… I want to share a recent encounter I had at a Father’s Heart conference I attended just 4 days ago!

On the first night, after listening to a talk about creating a culture of freedom and the importance of being authentic and embracing emotion I came away challenged because I knew these were areas I still struggled with. I wasn’t feeling that great physically. I had a headache and was feeling hormonally challenged! I went to bed but couldn’t get to sleep. At 2.45 I got up and began to pour out my discontent to God. As I did I began to get gut level honest and wrote in my journal how I was really feeling. I told God that when I struggled to find him near I felt disappointed and shut out. I didn’t like it when I didn’t feel strong, peaceful, restful, full of faith, hope-filled and close to him. I didn’t feel safe and I would then blame myself and begin to compare myself with others around me and either pretend I was engaging or I would give up and withdraw believing that true heart connection is just hard work…believing the lie that it was down to my efforts.

The more honest I was the more I felt God draw near. God showed me the lies that I was believing. He reminded me that it was his desire to draw near to me and all I had to do was simply receive him. He spoke to me from Psalm 116 about finding rest for my soul, of standing firm, of my weakness keeping me dependent and leaning on his love and grace and of pressing on to know him more.

As I meditated on his words of encouragement to me I felt strengthened again and began to encounter joy and peace.

The following day as we began to worship I entered from a different place and I encountered a new level of intimacy. Instead of working hard for intimacy and connection I positioned my heart to receive and it was wonderful. I felt God pouring his love into my heart in fresh waves.

Through being authentic and embracing emotion I found a new level of freedom. The devil hates intimacy and will use everything he can to keep us from it for this is what we were made for.

Let us feel deeply in order to greater glorify our God and let us be authentic in our communion with him.