Feelings

It is OK to feel what you feel. Throughout our lives we all feel a veritable plethora of different emotions. Some we consider positive and others we consider negative. Generally speaking we cannot control what it is that we feel when certain situations come up. It just sort of happens.

Still, I think all of us have experienced someone telling us what we should be feeling. "You should be excited!" or "You should be outraged!" or "You should be more sad about this." or something to a similar effect. Often times I believe that it is meant with the best of intentions, but rarely do I think those intentions are ever achieved.

When we turn to Scripture, and especially the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, we see the full gambit of human emotion in all their messy glory. We see Job struggle with guilt, rage, grief, and emptiness as he debates with his friends over the events of his life. In the Psalms we can read laments of great sorrow, exultations of great joy, and imprecatory prayers of great anger. Ecclesiastes sometimes feels like a person struggling with doubt, depression, and anxiety trying to discern purpose. The Song of Songs is a incredibly open display of love, sexual desire, and attraction. 

The biblical authors had no qualms about feeling what they felt and neither should we. Life is going to throw all sorts of twists and turns at us and we will all respond differently. You don't have to be outraged at something just because someone else is. You don't have to be excited about a big change in your life just because everyone says you should be. You are allowed to feel what you feel.

However, this is not the end of the story. We are allowed to feel what we feel, but we are not allowed to be governed by what we feel. The way I treat my neighbor is not to be dictated by my mood. I am called to love them regardless of what I'm feeling that day. The fruit of the Spirit do not become optional when I am sad or angry.

Evil actions and sin are not justified simply because of my feelings, however powerful they may be. There are times in my life where I've been so angry at someone or something where I wanted to punch them in the face. No matter how angry I become that is never an option. I must enslave my mind and emotions to Christ.

That is the key here. When reading the biblical authors and their expressions of intense emotion it is important to remember that they were written in the explicit context of expressing and entrusting them to God. The psalmists weren't just writing for kicks and giggles. They were writing to help both themselves and others take those feelings of grief, anger, emptiness, and even joy and submit them to God.

So feel what you feel. Make room for that and recognize your emotions for what they are, for it is by truly understanding what we are feeling that we are able to fully express and entrust them to God. When we have refused to allow our emotions to govern us we can instead submit to the authority of Christ.