Dan B. Allender & Tremper Longman III
Some excerpts from Cap.3:
'[...] 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. Each moment of pleasure and pain compels us to ask uniquely personal questions: “Why did my dad abuse me?… Why did my mom die before I had a chance to know her?… What is God’s purpose in giving me musical gifts?… What am I to do with the wealth of my family?” But every personal question reflects a far deeper, existential struggle: “What is the nature of life? And who or what is God?” Consequently, although our emotions are provoked by the various individual themes of our story, they all echo a common question: “Is God good?”.'
'[...] My angry question, “Why don’t You do something, God?” was an aggressive reaction: to fight in order to avoid desire and trust. It seemed unfair for God to ask me simultaneously to want Emily {a friend's wife, who is in a coma} to be healed while trusting Him no matter what He chose to do.
I fought God’s movement toward me. Then, in contempt, I fled from it. I wasn’t simply fleeing from my friend, or from pain or confusion. Ultimately, my contempt was flight from God.
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?”.'
'[...] King David points toward God as the ultimate Being against whom we sin and struggle: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge” (Psalm 51:4).
Our emotional struggles reflect far more than our battle with people and events; they reveal our deepest questions about God. But how do we make the connection from the horizontal circumstances that provoke our emotions to the vertical conditions they point to? In this chapter, we will explore three fundamental types of relational movement (against, away, and toward) that provoke our emotions. This context helps clarify how our responses in human relationships are rooted in the nature of our relationship with God. As we understand what situationally provokes our emotions, we will open the door to recognizing the deeper struggles involved in all emotion.'
'[...] 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. In the context of a sinful, fallen world, our emotional responses to these relational movements can generally be characterized as fight or flight. The following diagram shows how these responses give rise to our difficult emotions.'
Original diagram (in english):
'[...] 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. How do we feel when someone loves us but we view that love as too disruptive and dangerous? We fight off our need for it with skepticism and contempt or flee from the need it exposes in us by withdrawing in shame.'
'[...] Abandonment: The Withdrawal of Intimacy
Abandonment inevitably leads to loss: the loneliness of living in isolation from those who mean the most to us. It is separation, but it feels like death: it signals the end of relationship.
Every human relationship is haunted by potential abandonment. Our friends could betray us, our children spurn us, our spouse divorce us. Abandonment invades every relationship and mocks intimacy.
Loss is a cruel taunt. It deepens desire as it takes away hope. 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 me isolated and alone?".'
'[...] Jealousy: Possessive Rage
Jealousy comes from wanting to keep what we angrily fear we might lose; envy comes from wanting to gain what we do not have. Both jealousy and envy involve a furious demand that our soul not suffer loss... Jealousy builds a fence around the one who might leave; it is a possessive rage that attempts to protect the beloved from a rival suitor and the self from loss.
Envy also works to escape loss. It is painful to see another enjoy what we lack, so we become thieves who ransack or steal the pleasures of others. Rather than bear the loss and trust in God’s goodness, we strike out against those who seem to threaten or enjoy what we desperately claim as our own.
James tell us that our envious fury becomes murderous when we suffer the loss of what we desire: “You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want” (James 4:2). 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 good?"—"will He satisfy my hunger?" "Or will He bless others and leave me empty?".'
'[...] Despair: Flight from Loneliness
Despair is the refusal to struggle. It deadens our heart to the hope that we will be rescued, redeemed, and happy.
A friend spoke of her crumbling marriage: “I cannot bear the thought that my husband might change. I have hoped for years that he would be the man I know he could be, but I grew so weary of the ups and downs of disappointment that I have given up desiring for him to change. I hate hope. I refuse to want something again, only to be as devastated as I have been all these years”. Despair refuses to hope.
Proverbs declares, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12). A better translation of the word “sick” is "nausea". “Sick” implies not feeling well; "nausea" is overwhelming. If hope deferred makes the soul sick, then it’s no wonder most of us spend our lives in denial, focusing our passions on more trivial desires. Such despair saves us from the possibility of really wanting something that might be denied us.
We hate to be lonely. We might enjoy being alone, but we despise being cut off and isolated from others. We desire intimacy, yet despair deadens our sense of caring whether anyone wants relationship with us. It allows us to wallow in our failures rather than face our need.
Ungodly despair dulls the loneliness and passively demands some kind of relief; since God fails to offer His presence for comfort, I am justified to act on my own behalf. 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?".
Living with an inner dullness works for a while. However, life—or, more accurately, God—refuses to allow us to exist as robots. Suffering strips us of that strategy by forcing us either to struggle with God or to kill our desires—in essence, to commit soul murder. God provokes us to move out of our complacency and mediocrity by moving toward us, arousing our deepest passions.'
'[...] Love: The Pursuit of our Hearts
Despair dulls us to any movement made toward us that might arouse the desire for intimacy. The repeated cycle of desire aroused, hope disappointed, and soul deadened through despair leads to a hatred of desire.
Desire is an enemy that can be neutralized through contempt. 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. Therefore, the offer of intimacy often provokes contempt (fight) or shame (flight).
Intimacy is a taste of reconciliation. It is a testimony to the fact that separation and loss have been overcome. Moments of connection reflect our hunger for redemption, for perfect relationship with God. Although we crave redemption, we are also reluctant to let our desires exceed our control. We work hard to dull the potential for assault or loss that comes when we open our hearts to intimacy.
However, God will not leave us in our superficiality or sullen despair. Nor will He allow our puny shields of anger to stall Him. He will not leave us alone. He pursues. He intrudes. He will use any and every means to do so. He constantly moves toward us, arousing both desire and ambivalence. We want and we don’t want the grace that can break our hearts. We know that involvement with God will require the removal of our deepest defenses. He never merely takes us as we are. He receives us and changes us. We want change, and we do not want change.
C.S. Lewis pictures this battle in the memorable character of Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace succumbed to the powers of evil and was turned into a dragon. He could return to being a human only if he was willing to let Aslan (the Christ figure) cut him open with his sharp claws. To Eustace, this was insanity: he would perish! Yet that was the whole point. His life depended on his willingness to die. He hated his condition and wanted change, but he was terrified to die. His ambivalence tore him to pieces.
So does ours. 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?".'
'[...] Contempt: The Shield of Mockery
Contempt smells kindness, grace, and compassion and turns up its nose in disgust.
We desperately want love, but passion seems dangerous. Consequently, we shun loving movement toward us by treating it with contempt. 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?
Paul asks a difficult question regarding our response to God’s gracious movement toward us: “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?” (Romans 2:4). When someone gives us a gift, we stiffen when we doubt their sincerity, fear that our desire for more will increase beyond our control, or recoil in the sense that our sinfulness makes us unlovable. Contempt is a defense against the naked shame that comes when love penetrates a sinful heart.
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: A Flight from Intimacy
Shame is a flight from intimacy. It is one of our deepest fears: We will be isolated and mocked forever. It is a taste of hell—the experience of being caught without defense or cover and condemned to unrelenting humiliation.
Shame is feeling exposed as ugly beyond words. Nothing else cuts to the core so personally as shame does. Philosopher Jean Paul Sartre referred to it as a “hemorrhage of the soul”.
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. Its typical posture is eyes downcast, shoulders slumped, heart disengaged. Shame is an escape from reality through dissociation.
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 me?", or "will He hate me if He sees me as I really am?".
Most of us seek to escape from shame by spending our energy insulating ourselves from anything or anyone that might provoke exposure.
A woman who refuses to learn to ski explained, “I haven’t learned a new sport since I was a kid. It’s not that I’m afraid of falling or hurting myself. I remember how I hated trying something new with others around who knew how to do it. They looked at me with such disgust, I swore I would never humiliate myself learning something new again”.
Others choose spouses or careers on the same basis. “Will this person or activity expose me to humiliation, shame, mockery? If so, then I refuse to move into that arena”. Many refuse to speak about their inner convictions or faith because they fear being mocked.
Shame seems to justify avoidance. Even more, it seems to demand the insulation of arrogance. This is shamelessness—immunity to shame through progressive hardening of the heart.
Arrogance is more than a cocky attitude or boasting about personal competence; it is a clenched fist shaken at the heavens in defiance: “I will not bow; I will not be broken by the weight of reality. I will not succumb to the desire for reconciliation. I will not face, nor feel, the groaning of my soul for redemption”. Arrogance can show itself in contemptuous belligerence or in the quiet refusal, or supposed inability, to feel. Arrogance involves turning away from the groaning of our soul—and, therefore, turning away from struggling with God.
What does the struggle with God look like? What is the battle that we must fight with God if we are to know Him with depth and passion?
The answer is that each of us must wrestle with the complaint, “How long, O 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.'