“The basic reason we need negative, unpleasant emotions is that we live in a fallen world. God made us to respond to things as they actually are. Human beings should be distressed by what is distressing, horrified by violence and abuse, deeply concerned (we’d call it “anxious”) about the possibility of injury to someone or something we love, angry at arrogant injustices. To not feel grief when someone we love dies, to not feel discouraged when we find ourselves falling into the same pattern of sin yet again, to not be upset when our children lie or hurt each other would be wrong… You were made in the image of God himself, and that means you were made to see the world as he sees it, to respond as he responds, to hate what he hates, and to be bothered by what brings him displeasure. That doesn’t mean that godly grief or righteous anger or holy discouragement will feel pleasant! It does mean that a whole host of uncomfortable feelings can be deeply godly, right, and holy…
J. Alasdair Groves & Winston T. Smith
Here is the big idea: Our negative emotions, like God’s, play a necessary role in our lives. They tell us that something is wrong. Just as happiness, joy, peace, and contentment look around and conclude that things are as they ought to be, so disgust, annoyance, discouragement, and fury are designed to identify places where this fallen world is fallen, where disorder, damage, and destruction have broken something we rightly hold precious. Evaluating the world as fractured and being moved in response are deeply Christian experiences…
A day is coming when we will never again feel sorrow or anger or fear or disgust, because there will be nothing at which to be sorrowful or angry or afraid or disgusted. Until that day, however, it is only by entering into both the joys and the pains of God’s love for his children that we can live in honest, wise relationship with the One who made us. Only those who love the Lord enough to open their hearts to the pain in his world will be able to enter into his joy as well.”
Reflection:
No one enjoys being uncomfortable, but if we are not careful, we might assume that anything uncomfortable is to be avoided. Yet, there are many things Jesus calls us to do that are uncomfortable. So, if we’ve bought into the false notion that all bad feelings are to be avoided, we won’t follow through in faithfulness to Christ.
Before we can rightly engage with our emotions, we need a biblical understanding of them. Once we realize that emotions are a God-given capacity, have been warped by sin, and can be redeemed by Christ, we can begin to evaluate our emotions through the lens of Scripture. It is good to respond to the world in ways that are honest. That means, as long as we await the final restoration of all things, negative emotions can be both right and good. But before we know it, Christ will return, and all the uncomfortable emotions we are called to faithfully endure will pass away forever.
Get your copy of Untangling Emotions by J. Alasdair Groves & Winston T. Smith HERE!
