I’ve been sitting here pondering how we should best temper our emotions as we go through our lives — choice-making and doing things and whatnot. In my mind are quotes from Christian thinkers and others about how we shouldn’t be led by our emotions or focus too much on them in our lives or our spirituality. But I wonder now: “Why?”
I believe this bent to minimize, push aside, or say “not too much,” or “not too important,” about our emotions is rooted in the same sexist thinking we’ve been dealing with for millennia. The same “complementarian” farce that says women are great but also intrinsically different (and slightly less important). The thinking among many “progressive” theological (and other) thinkers today is that emotions are important and should not be looked down upon. But they are also not most essential or particularly reliable.
This is the same as the idea that the feminine is “emotional” (which is a negative), while the masculine is unemotional/rational (which is a positive). “Sure, emotions are a big part of our lives and can bring us lots of lovely moments, but we should not give them primacy, look to them for ultimate meaning or base decisions upon them.” It brings me back to countless Mother’s Day sermons I’ve been present for, when how “amazing and important” women are extolled to be before each is gifted with a flower and then returned to nursery care from whence they came.
Brennan Manning powerfully speaks on this issue in his book, Abba’s Child:
“To ignore, repress or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John’s gospel, we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33). In the book of Matthew we see that His anger erupted: “Hypocrites! It was you Isaiah meant when he so rightly prophesied: This people honors me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me. The worship they offer me is worthless” (15:7-9). He called the crowd to intercessory prayer because “he felt sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd” (9:36). When He saw the widow of Nain, “he felt sorry for her” (Luke 7:13). … Grief and frustration spontaneously broke through when “as he drew near and came in sight of the city he shed tears over it and said, ‘peace’” (Luke 19:41). Jesus abandoned all emotional restraint when He roared, “The devil is your father, and you prefer to do what your father wants,” (John 8:44). We hear more than a hint of irritation when, dining at Simon’s house in Bethany, Jesus said “Leave her alone. Why are you upsetting her?” (Mark 14:6). We hear utter frustration in the words “How much longer must I be with you?” (Matthew 17:17), unmitigated rage in “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to my path” (16:23), extraordinary sensitivity in “Somebody touched me. I felt that power had gone out from me” (Luke 8:36), and blazing wrath in “Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market” (John 2:16). We have spread so many ashes over the historical Jesus that we scarcely feel the glow of His presence anymore. He is a man in a way that we have forgotten men can be: truthful, blunt, emotional, non-manipulative, sensitive, compassionate — His inner child so liberated that he did not feel it unmanly to cry. … The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. The Son of Man did not scorn or reject feelings as fickle or unreliable. They were sensitive emotional antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action. (p. 70-71)
For Jesus, the scriptures and the logical underpinnings of God and life were the backdrop to how he lived. They formed his mores, so to speak, the way to put one foot in front of the other, but it was from his emotions and his prayers that he based his day-to-day and moment-to-moment choices. His prayers were prayers of the heart. In the Garden of Gethsemane, his prayer was so emotional he fell on his face, “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). The ways he responded to actual people and situations he encountered — with anger, tears, reprimands, comfort, help, acceptance, companionship — were based on his holy, pure emotions. “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19 NIV).
It has always been a tactic of the enemy of our hearts to suck the life from Scripture, so it will be to us like food made from empty hulls from which we try to gain our nutrients. I don’t believe it was an accident that the Bible was kept unattainably in Latin for so long, or that the archaic English versions reigned for so long in recent times. The inaccessible and dusty quality of the words keep them from penetrating our hearts and from relatably applying to our lives, emotions, relationships, fights and situations today. No less do the droning, starched tones of so many teachers and preachers of the Word dull the razor sharp power of the double-edged sword meant to divide soul and spirit, joint and marrow.
Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (NASB). “Give you the desires of your heart” can also be translated as: “put in place the petitions of your inner man,” or “set the requests of your heart.” He specifically promises to guide our hearts if we follow Him. So why would we ever dismiss our hearts and the directions in which they prompt us along our paths?
Emotion is what drives me to love someone when my mind says that maybe it's not worth it.
It is in the emotional stirring in my heart that I feel God tell me to turn left, when in my head I’m thinking that left and right could both be viable options, and that perhaps turning right would bring a greater chance of good fortune.
It is in heeding the impulse of emotion that I give from my wallet to someone in need in an online fundraiser, rather than making a list of pros and cons and hashing out my next month’s budget.
Emotion is what stirs worship in my heart, not repeating Bible verses in my mind and how they might apply to my life.
It is a burst of anger and/or compassion for someone that drives me to speak up for their intrinsic humanity rather than holding my tongue because of how others might perceive me or how that could affect my life.
If I didn’t heed the emotional nudges of well-timed words and deeds, so many beautiful moments would never see the light of day.
Of course our emotions are fallible. Every part of us is. But I see no basis for a belief that our emotions are any more fallible than our minds or our rationality. Am I able to figure out God using my awesome brain power? Of course not. I also cannot "figure out" God with my heart, but I can meet him and touch him in ways that my mind alone never can.
The Bible is meant to shake us, just as Jesus himself was shaken and shook. He lived a life of passion, deep emotion and godly impulses. He did not walk through life doling our platitudes with a benign smile. Nor did he quote the reliability of rationality, weigh out options in pro-con lists, or whip out Scripture in search of a specific chapter and verse in order to answer the questions he was faced with as he walked through life. He loved his Father, based his life on his truth, regularly prayed heart-wringing, wisdom-seeking, strength-gleaning prayers, and made his choices day by day based on the emotions that stirred in him. And thank God he did.
In my interactions and relationships today, I would much, much rather heed the words of, and be in the presence of, someone who has never known Scripture, but has been wooed by the Spirit of God than be with someone who knowns Scripture inside and out and who does not allow her heart to be actively led by Him.
Peace and Love,
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