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The psalmist invited me to struggle, to flesh out my complaint before God in order to grasp something about His character. I was compelled to voice what I would have preferred to keep silent.
Emotions are the cry of the soul. They expose what we are doing with the sorrow of life and in turn reveal what our heart is doing with God.
Emotions reveal what our hearts are doing with God.
The Psalms mirror the human soul. We look into them, and we see ourselves.
The Psalms provoke us to move out of denial.
Christians are particularly adept at numbing themselves against painful emotions. "After all," we reason, "we should be joyful bec...
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The psalmist's ruthless honesty compels us to look beyond the surface of our tumult, deeper into our soul, where we expose our battle with God.
God can use our emotions to disclose sin through revealing the depths of our battle with Him.
all dread is related to the question, Is life predictable?
All anger is related to the question, Is life just?
The Psalms help us understand that every emotion is a theological statement. All feelings reveal our attempt to maneuver into a position of regaining access to the pleasures and perfection of God. All dark emotions are rooted in our reactive response (flight) to being out of ...
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Unrighteous anger demands that others respond to our plight or pay the consequences.
Some believers cringe from this language of desperation and rage, even though they have the model of the psalmist. "The psalmist didn't have Christ, but we do-so we can't be lonely, angry, or afraid!"
But this is presumption, not faith. The laments of the Psalms encourage us to risk the danger of speaking boldly and personally to the Lord of the universe.
the Psalms invite us to question God. But they do this in the context of worship-they were the hymnal used in public worship. God invites us to bring before Him our rage, doubt, and terror-but He intends for us to do so as part of worship. This is the kind of emotional struggle we must engage in if we are to fathom the nature of God's heart for us.
WORSHIP!!
It is in the dark struggles with God that we are surprised by His response to our anger and fear. What we receive from Him during our difficult battle is not what we expect. We assume He wants order, conformity-obedient children. Instead, we find that He wants our passionate involvement and utter awe in the mystery of His glorious character.
The Psalms disclose God's fiery love for His people. He draws us to the extreme edge of ...
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by careful, well-planne...
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In the darkness of our emotional wrestling with God, we grow in our understanding of Him.
How can we begin to understand the nature of God's anger unless we enter into our own? How are we to gain any picture of what it means for a holy, righteous God to be jealous for His people if we ignore our human envy and jealousy?
If we are to comprehend more richly the heart of God, it is imperative that we seek to unde...
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The Psalms propel us into the deepest questions about ourselves, about others, and about God. As we let them expose the depths of our emotion, they will lead us to the God wh...
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The cry of the soul is the suffering of childbirth, the anguished waiting for God to redeem our bodies and souls, the heavens and the earth. The complaint of the soul, "How long?" is a plea, a prayer, an accusation.
Every person lives a unique story, composed of moments of great joy and tragic pain.
But every personal question reflects a far deeper, existential struggle: "What is the nature of l...
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All our emotions find their final object of focus in Him. I say this because at the root of all joy is the wonder of redemption; at the core of all difficult emotion is the question: "God, are You good?"
But how do we make the connection from the horizontal circumstances that provoke our emotions to the vertical conditions they point to?
Our emotions are based on our responses to how others deal with us. Our feelings are provoked when people relate to us in one of three ways: (1) they move against us: attack; (2) they move away from us: abandonment; (3) they move toward us: love.
What is our emotional reaction when someone attacks us? We either return the attack in anger or retreat in fear.
How do we respond to the loss of abandonment? We either cling desperately in a jealous rage or withdraw from the pain of involvement in despair.
Anger revolves around the question, Is God just-will He let the wicked win? Fear centers on the question, Will God protect me?
Unrighteous anger dulls the pain of desperation and aggressively demands justice; since God fails to protect us, we are justified in taking matters into our own hands. Anger vocalizes the core question, Is God just-will He let the wicked win and prevail against me?
Anger attempts to rectify God's passivity by empowering us to act instead of waiting vulnerably for God to do something. It is not only a protection against harm and an energizer for battle; it is a taunt against God for apparently refusing to act on our behalf.
Both fear and anger are self justifying; fear simply moves us in the opposite direction of anger. Ungodly fear dulls the pain of desperation and passively demands protection; since God fails to protect me, I am justified to act on my own behalf. Fear vocalizes the core question, Can I trust God to protect me from harm?
Loss and abandonment provoke jealousy (fight) and despair (flight). Jealousy asks the question, Is God good, or
will He leave me empty and bless others? Despair asks, Will God leave m...
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Ungodly jealousy dulls the pain of loss and aggressively demands satisfaction; since God fails to provide for me, I am justified to act on my own behalf. Jealousy vocalizes the core question, Is God goodwill
He satisfy my hunger? Or will He bless others and leave me empty?
Despair is the refusal to struggle. It deadens our heart to the hope that we will be resc...
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Proverbs declares, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is...
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Ungodly despair dulls the loneliness and passively demands some kind of relief;
Despair vocalizes the core question, Is God good, or will He leave me in isolation? Will He offer His presence to others and leave me alone?
Contempt is our means of fighting against the arousal of hope when someone moves toward us, offering kindness and tenderness. If hope penetrates the facade of contempt, we often feel like fools who have been set up and used. Shame comes when our desire for intimacy exposes us as naked and needy.
We work hard to dull the potential for assault or loss that comes when we open our hearts to intimacy.
We fight God's movement toward us and relieve our ambivalence with contempt and shame. Here, the deepest difficulties of the human heart come to the surface. The questions, Is God just? Is He good? become more simple and personal: Does God love me?
We're really asking, If you move toward me, I will be aroused with the anticipation of involvement. But what if you don't really want me? What if your movement toward me is really meant for another, or-worse-meant for my harm?
Ungodly contempt dulls the ups and downs of ambivalence and aggressively demands distance; since God's love does not seem clear, I am justified to act on my own behalf. Contempt vocalizes the core question, Does God love me, or will He turn away in disgust?
Shame drains us of energy and withers our desire to exist. Like other emotions of flight (fear and despair), shame is a withdrawal from engagement.
Ungodly shame dulls the terror of exposure and passively
demands safety; since God's love seems dangerous, I am justified in shutting down. Shame vocalizes the core question, Does God love m...
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Most of us seek to escape from shame by spending our energy insulating ourselves from anything or anyone...
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Shame seems to justify avoidance. Even more, it seems to demand the insulation of arrogance.
The answer is that each of us must wrestle with the complaint, "How long, 0 Lord?" Each of our difficult emotions-anger, fear, jealousy, despair, contempt, and shame-opens the door for that question to be exposed and answered through the mystery of God's involvement with us.
