Emotional Storms

The following is an excerpt from Big Deep Breath pages 43-45.

I am weary with my sighing; Every night I make my bed swim, I dissolve my couch with my tears. My eye has wasted away with grief; It has become old become of all my adversaries.

Psalm 6:6-7

Whether we realize it or not, we all experience an extensive range of emotions throughout the day. We have feelings about everything we go through. While some of us stifle our emotions, others allow our emotions to control us. Few of us are emotionally healthy. Often our struggle can be a symptom of the disconnect between our spiritual lives and our emotional lives. As a result, we never bring our emotions into our relationship with our heavenly Father. We may reason that God must not care about how we feel. He’s not concerned about that. He’s too busy. Or, we don’t even know how to share our emotions with Him.

In Psalm 116, we find the connection between the psalmist’s emotional life and spiritual life. He wrote in verses 1–3, “I love the Lord, because He hears my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I shall call upon Him as long as I live. The cords of death encompassed me and the terrors of Sheol came upon me; I found distress and sorrow.”

The psalmist allowed himself to feel based on the circumstances of his life. He felt fearful, distressed, and full of sorrow, but what did he do with those emotions? He brought his feelings into his relationship with God. He poured out how he was feeling before his Father. He didn’t try to sugarcoat anything—he expressed his emotional reality to the Lord and was honest with his Father. He didn’t deny his fear, distress, and sadness, and they did not control him. Instead, he invited God into his emotions and his situation.

“The cords of death encompassed me And the terrors of Sheol came upon me; I found distress and sorrow. Then I called upon the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I beseech You, save my life!” (Psalm 116:3–4, emphasis mine). The writer didn’t allow his emotions to create distance or separation between him and the One upon whom he called. Similarly, God wants us to bring our emotional reality into our relationship with Him and to call out to Him no matter what emotions we’re experiencing. During the pain, heartache, torment, fear, or worry, He’s waiting for us to call upon His name.

Even human parents want to understand the emotional reality of their children. And yet, God our Father is the perfect parent. He longs for us to connect our emotional life to our intimacy with Him. He wants us to place our raw emotions at His feet and allow Him to comfort, rescue, and deliver us.

So, no matter how you’re feeling—no matter what’s going on in your life—tell your Father. At first, it will feel strange to share how you’re feeling with Him. But He already knows anyway, so you might as well tell Him: “Father, I’m frustrated about something that’s going on at work.” “I’m mad at my wife.” “I’m mad at my husband.” “I’m mad at my kids.” “Father, I feel joyful because of this.”

God wants to hear your emotional reality, and He can handle whatever you’re feeling. But when you create a separation between your emotional life and your spiritual life, you build a wall compartmentalizing God’s stuff over here and your real-life stuff over there. You tell yourself that you have to deal with certain things on your own. But that’s not true; God wants to walk with you through every emotion, situation, and blessing.

It’s time to tear down that wall and bring all your emotions into your relationship with God. Invite Him to sit with you. He’ll listen—He’ll hear you and love you in the middle of your emotional reality, no matter how messy or chaotic it is—and He’ll bring rest to your soul (Psalm 116:7).

Breathe deeply, knowing you can share your emotional reality with your Father every day.