Dan B. Allender & Tremper Longman III
Some excerpts from Introduction & Cap.1:
'[...] It’s foolish to assume that we can directly alter our emotions simply by willing them to change. If you’re angry, it’s absurd for me to say to you, “Don’t be angry”, and then expect that you can simply switch to feeling kind or happy.
It is also a mistake simply to work at overcoming a troublesome emotion through behavioral techniques. This is not to say that it’s wrong to pray for release from rage or envy. It’s inadequate, however, to assume that we can change our emotions by applying a few methods to gain handles on our troublesome inner world.
Struggling with emotions is not a matter of solving problems with a little more information and practical knowhow. We are not machines that can be repaired through a series of steps—we are relational beings who are transformed by the mystery of relationship. We are radically disposed to idolatry, illusion-making, and attempts to secure our lives without bowing before God. Our core problem is not a lack of information—it is flight and rebellion.
Therefore, if we view difficult emotions as problems to be solved, we will end up looking for answers that will work rather than pursuing relationship with God, regardless of immediate outcome. A determination to resolve our emotional struggles inevitably subordinates God as a servant of our healing rather than a Person to be praised.
Rather than focusing on trying to change our emotions, we are wiser first to listen to them. They are a voice that can tell us how we are dealing with a fallen world, hurtful people, and a quizzical God who seldom seems to be or do what we expect of Him. Although emotions are generally aroused in a human context, they always reveal something about how we are dealing with God.
The revelation of reality—outside of us and within us—opens the door to wrestling with God. Encounter with God not only changes our emotions; more importantly, it has the potential to change our hearts.'
'[...] It’s important to realize that every emotion involves a complex interplay between body and heart. We do not merely experience anger in our minds—we feel it in our bodies. The same is true for fear, jealousy, despair, contempt, and shame. Therefore, it is dangerous to presume that all emotional struggles can be changed by a strictly “spiritual” encounter. For some, a deep spiritual encounter will include embracing biological weakness.
Certain emotions, especially anxiety and depression, involve physiological components that can often be treated with medication and other biological intervention. Ignoring the importance of the body involves a tragic misunderstanding about what it means to pursue God. It is a terrible wrong to place extra burdens on those who suffer profound emotional battles by suggesting that all they need to do is to work out their issues with God to make their struggles go away. It is equally wrong to suggest that it is unspiritual or a second-best compromise to seek physiological help. This issue is not a black-and-white, either-or option. The biological dimension of emotion is a complex factor, which we are not ignoring.'
'[...] Perhaps no section of Scripture more poignantly exposes the inner world of our heart and more vividly reveals the emotional life of God than the Psalms. The Psalms were composed in poetic form. Poetry reaches to the realm beyond the world of sight and sound to reveal what our senses long to see and hear. It is the language not so much of the sublime, but of the truly real—a reality that cannot be grasped through scientific or theoretical precision. Theological propositions are necessary for understanding truth, but truth is ultimately relational, and relationship is the domain of poetry. Poetry is God’s invitation to glimpse the unseen—His very character.'
'[...] The pains of life in a fallen world turn us into something not fully human. When we experience pain, our deepest passion is to escape the bludgeons of assault, betrayal, and loss. Most of us don‘t resort to the deadness that buffered my client’s pain. But in our desperation, each of us in our own way tries to dull the intensity of our groaning.
We might cling to emotional responses that enable us to cope with the harm that comes in small and large doses. For example, many men find it easier to feel anger than hurt. And many women find it safer to feel hurt or confusion rather than anger. So we buttress our sagging confidence and relieve our ambivalence by resorting to anger. We justify our flight through confusion and fear. We escape sadness by opting for shame; we bypass loss by giving into jealousy. In other words, we use one emotion to hide from other, more painful feelings.
Another way to dull the intensity of our inward groaning is by attempting to avoid our emotions. For many, strong feelings are an infrequent, foreign experience. Their inner life is characterized by an inner coolness, bordering on indifference. Unfortunately, this is often mistaken for trust. In many circles, passionate emotions are discouraged as unspiritual. You are considered godly if you can handle difficult trials with a detached and apparently unruffled confidence.
But this conclusion is wrong. There are times when lack of emotion is simply the byproduct of hardness and arrogance. The Scriptures reveal that this absence of feelings is often a refusal to face the sorrow of life and the hunger for heaven; it is not the mark of maturity, but rather the boast of evil (see Isaiah 47:8, Revelation 18:7).
Our refusal to embrace our emotions is often an attempt to escape the agony of childbirth and buttress the illusion of a safe world. It is an attempt to deal with a God who does not relieve our pain.
The presence of disruptive emotions that feel irrational or out of control is not necessarily a sign of disease, sin, or trauma. Instead, it may be the signal that the heart is struggling with God. Therefore, we must view the ups and downs of our emotional life not as a problem to be resolved, but as a cry to be heard.'
'[...] Listening to our Emotions
Emotions open the door to asking hard questions: Does life make sense? Is there any real purpose to my pain? Why must every relationship end? Is God good? If we are to understand ourselves honestly—and, more importantly, know God—we must listen to our emotions.
But the voices are legion that counsel, “Ignore what you feel. It will only get you into deeper trouble. Just get control, repent of negative feelings, believe by faith, choose the right course of action, and trust that emotions will follow like an obedient caboose”. Are those voices right? Is it a question of taming our emotional struggles and trying to do what’s right, day by day?
The Bible reveals that our inner world is complex. By God’s design we are complicated creatures. And further, we are deceitfully convoluted because of depravity. Through divine inspiration Jeremiah warns: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Clearly, handling our inner world is more complex than simply making a choice to manage our emotions.
The psalmist calls us to ponder our inner world, not neglect it: “Why, oh my soul, are you in despair?” he repeatedly asks. (See Psalm 42:11) Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God.
If we want to know God, we must ponder and struggle with our feelings to gain an understanding of the passions that rule us. Nothing illuminates the ruling passions of our heart as dramatically or clearly as our emotions. And no book of Scripture illuminates our emotions as dramatically or clearly as the Psalms. In the next chapter, we will see how the Psalms provide a voice for us to bring the cry of our soul before God.'
'[...] Emotions Reveal How We’re Doing with God
What are we to listen for in our emotions? The answer is, in part: We are to listen for the direction of our heart. The question, What do I feel? is in fact another way of asking, Who am I? What direction am I moving in?
We most often think of emotions in horizontal terms—how we’re doing in relation to people in our lives. But in a deeper sense, emotions reveal what’s happening on a vertical level. They provide a window on the question, What am I doing with God?
The heart’s movement can be calibrated and assessed in light of many different criteria, but all evaluations eventually boil down to this: Am I moving toward God or away from Him? Am I turning toward God with awe and gratitude, or away from Him toward false gods of my own making?
Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice. To understand our deepest passions and convictions, we must learn to listen to the cry of the soul.
However, we often turn a deaf ear—through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement. We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain tenuous control of our inner world. We are frightened and ashamed of what leaks into our consciousness. In neglecting our intense emotions, we are false to ourselves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know God. We forget that change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God. Only face to face with our deepest ruling passions is there hope of redeeming the fabric of our inner world.
Listening is the first step toward altering destructive emotions. Are you pursuing God?—your emotions will tell you. Are you pursuing false gods?—your emotional life will provide strong clues to the nature of your soul’s direction.
But how? Are we to presume that good feelings are the sign of faithful pursuit of God, and bad feelings the sign of idolatry? How easy if it were that simple. We can’t slap labels on our emotions as positive or negative, good or bad. Neither can we “fix” our emotional struggles as if they were so many broken toys.
We can, however, view our emotions from the perspective of whether they lead us to engagement with God or move us away from greater dependence on Him. We can listen to what they tell us about our struggles. Emotions are like messengers from the front lines of the battle zone. Our tendency is to kill the messenger. But if we listen carefully, we will learn how to fight the war successfully.
Listening to our emotions requires that we know how to speak the language of the heart. That is what we will be doing in the rest of this book: learning to speak the language of the heart by discovering how our emotions, particularly the difficult ones, reveal our deepest questions about God. And, ultimately, we will discover how these flawed emotions can give us unique and priceless glimpses of the character of God.
Emotion is a difficult topic. If you picked up this book because you wanted to discover how to find tranquility and ease amid the uncertainties of life, you will be disappointed. Peace that passes all understanding is possible, but more often than not it is an occasional refuge that comes only after wrestling with the inner realities of our struggles with life and with God.
Therefore, don’t assume that resolving your turbulent emotions is the key to meeting God. It is actually within the inner mayhem of life that a stage is built for the intrusive story of His light and hope. The absence of tumult, more than its presence, is an enemy of the soul. God meets you in your weakness, not in your strength. He comforts those who mourn, not those who live above desperation. He reveals Himself more often in darkness than in the happy moments of life.
This book outlines a journey that exposes the deepest questions of the heart. You won’t discover the kinds of answers that alleviate struggle. But you can encounter a person, God Himself, who exults in using darkness to reveal the brilliance of His infinite goodness. In hope that you will meet God, we ask you to choose to plunge into the emotions of anger, fear, jealousy, despair, contempt, and shame that yearn to be transformed.'