Understand your emotions
If you are surprised to hear that God actually wants you to draw near to him when you feel like you are an emotional mess, remember this: the Bible views emotions as fundamentally good. How do I know this? Because we are image bearers of God and he has emotions. His joy, hate, wrath, compassion, jealousy and love are the model for ours.
We are more than computers cataloging facts. He made us both to “taste and see that the Lord is good” and to “hate what is evil.” He commands us to “rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn” because he is a God who is moved by his children (eg., Hosea 11:8), a God who commands feasts and celebrations in Israel’s law (e.g., Lev. 23), a God who weeps at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11).
God doesn’t call us to avoid or squash our emotions (as Christians often suppose). Neither does he call us to embrace them unconditionally (as our culture often urges). Rather, he calls us to engage them by bringing our emotions to him and to his people. I like the word engage because it doesn’t make a premature assumption about whether the emotion is right or wrong, or how it might need to change. Instead it highlights what the Bible highlights: our emotions (good and bad) are meant to reveal the countless ways we need God.
Our emotions invite us to see the world as God sees it—both broken and beautiful—rejoicing where he is redeeming it and yearning for the full redemption that is yet to come. Only in the safety of his strength and patience can we face our visceral reactions, name them honestly, and talk about them with God and others.
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