The culture in which we live holds feelings in the highest regard, offering a stark picture of the danger that comes when emotions become our primary guide. Live your truth. Be true to yourself. Follow your heart. There is great danger when feelings hold the space of ultimate authority in a person’s life. As with any affect, having our emotions rightly ordered is essential.
Often in response to disordered emotions, the reaction tends to set feelings against faith, pitting them as enemies. This reactionary approach says: Shove them down. They aren’t reliable. Press forward and leave your feelings out of the equation. Charles Spurgeon warned, “If you knew yourself rightly, you would not dare to trust your feelings.” After all, Scripture tells us that “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9).
Throughout my childhood I was often told, “You’re too emotional,” or “You’re overly sensitive.” I began to believe emotions were inherently bad; that the lens through which I viewed the world was somehow lesser-than. Within my heart, however, the questions always lingered: If feelings and emotions are so bad, why do I have them? Why do they matter? What do I do with them?
Learning to navigate feelings and emotions can be complicated, especially for a Christian. We know the absolute truth of who God is, yet the reality is, we still experience seasons of confusion, hurt, and disappointment with his care. While these experiences do not change the truth of God’s character, they can absolutely begin to affect how we view him.
In these times, shoving down real, lived experiences cannot be the answer. When confusing emotions arise around God’s care and engagement, it’s easy to encounter spiritual bypassing from others or even within our own hearts. Rather than engaging the difficult experiences and emotions, feelings are dismissed in the name of “having faith.” We can be quick to declare, “God is good all the time!” when deep within, our hearts wrestle with the question of how do I see God’s goodness in this pain?
When these painful emotions arise, it can feel it can feel difficult to know how to reconcile the confusion that arises with the truth of Gods’ character and our experience of that character. In this confusion, it becomes easy to pit the truth of God against the emotion, as if emotions are the enemy of belief.
Knowing that, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” (Proverbs 9:10), God’s truth is both the starting place and the final authority. But what if feelings were viewed, not as an enemy of faith, but as a gift to steward? What if feelings were seen, not as commanders to drive us, but as harbingers and messengers meant to help us understand what is happening within our own hearts?
The reality is that we were created in God’s image, which includes our emotions. Looking to Jesus who is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), we see that his perfect life also included feelings. He was described as a “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He felt joy in obedience (Hebrews 12:2). He experienced weariness (John 4:6) and felt worn by the demands of ministry (Luke 5:16). He felt righteous anger toward the religious elite and the misuse of his Father’s house (Matthew 23:33). Moved by deep compassion for the suffering, “Jesus wept” when faced with the reality of death (John 11:35). In Gethsemane, he was overwhelmingly sorrowful, even to the point of death (Matthew 26:38).
What we see in Jesus is that our capacity to feel reflects God’s nature. While God, in His perfect holiness, does not experience reactive or passing emotions as we do, the fact that he created us with the capacity to feel and experience emotions means they are intentional. They are designed to reflect a piece of his character. While our emotions have certainly been corrupted by the fall, feelings themselves are not inherently sinful.
A piece of Christian maturity can begin when we understand there is a middle ground between blind emotionalism and emotional suppression. Feelings are not facts and this in-between space is not a place of compromise or drifting from truth, but it is a place in which feelings are held, acknowledged, and considered.
Part of maturing involves learning that emotions cannot be a guide that lead us but they should be a gauge to inform us; always sifting our feelings through the filter of truth. We must learn what it means to allow emotions to ride in the car, but not let them drive. When our emotions are properly ordered and directed, they can actually deepen our connection to God, guide us toward truth, and strengthen our relationships with others.
The English Reformer John Bradford wisely noted that “faith must first go before, and then feeling will follow.”
If you are someone who feels things deeply, or you are walking alongside someone who does, start by recognizing that emotions are not a foe to resist; they are not the enemy of faith. Feelings and emotions are a gift given by God that we must learn to steward. Learning to appropriately engage these feelings is a mark of true maturity. It’s a practice of taking these feelings to the Lord, filtering them through the lens of his Word, and trusting the Spirit to rightly order them.
Recognize today that your deep capacity to feel is an intentional gift from God. It is not a lesser way of living or an evil within to battle. It is a beautiful part of how God designed you; a gift to steward well for your good and God’s glory. Be encouraged in that truth today.
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Over the next several weeks, I hope to share several practical tips in learning how to both, “hold fast what is good,” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) yet also learn that while feelings are not facts, they still matter. Coming next week: Feelings Are Not Facts: Learning to Navigate Feelings of Disappointment With God’s Plans
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