Livro: "The Cry of the Soul" (fear)

"The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God"

Dan B. Allender & Tremper Longman III

<<< tradução automática para português >>>

Some excerpts about "fear":

'[...] Death, pain, and suffering are dangers that lurk behind every corner and under every bed. Most of us realize at an early age that danger exists, and that it can destroy us. And we know that we are impotent against the inevitability of death.
The book of Ecclesiastes drives home the significance of the horror of death. The teacher fully realizes that death not only brings life to a tragic conclusion, it renders meaningless every earthly status and achievement.
We fear physical and personal death. We fear dissolution, fragmentation, coming apart at the seams, non-being. We feel fear whenever death—the dissolution of order and coherence—plunges us into the dark unknown.
The psalmist, too, feared death. He did not try to hide his fear from God. Especially when he was sick (and there are a number of psalms sung by the psalmist when he was sick), he cried out in terror to the Lord to save him from the grave. Psalm 30 is actually a thanksgiving psalm, giving praise to God for saving the psalmist from death, but in the process of celebrating his healing, the psalmist quotes his earlier lament to God:
What gain is there in my destruction,
in my going down into the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me;
O Lord, be my help.

(Psalms 30:9–10) 
At the heart of the fear of death is the terror of separation. Death is the ultimate experience of loneliness. When we die, those things and people who give us joy are gone forever. Indeed, when seen apart from the gospel, death separates us even from ourselves.
Death is a physical reality, but it is also symbolic. We feel fear when core, life-giving dreams that are the basis of our personal identity are threatened with extinction.'

 

'[...] The reality of death drives home the fact that everyone experiences fear. Even if your life is perfect, every relationship a success, and every aspect of your life in order, you have something to fear—the dark, unknown reality of death. Indeed, I would argue that those who are most happy in this life are also the most fearful of death. Death means separation from the status you get from your work, the respect you receive from others, the benefits of your material possessions, the presence of your loved ones.'

 

'[...] Danger also exposes our impotence to preserve what matters most to us: our happiness. The more important the concern, the more helpless we are to preserve it. I can keep my yard green and virtually free from weeds. But I cannot ensure that my children will grow in the Lord and be free from the entanglements of sin.
Daily life tends to shield us from our real helplessness to the extent that it preserves our illusion of power and control. We can plan a trip or finish a project, and we feel powerful. But the effect of our labor can be undone in an instant, and we are helpless to keep that dissolution at bay.'

 

'[...] It feels like I can’t win. The weeds of life seem destined to invade my garden. The harder I try to make life work, the more I seem to be assaulted from every side. When I decide to spend more time with the kids, something seems to spring out of the calendar to hinder my good intention. When I make a little extra money, the car breaks down. It is the second law of thermodynamics: entropy, decay, the rising tide of decline at work in every object, physical body, and relationship. It seems I am stuck with intermittent success, followed by the resurgence of more weeds.
We want control; we hate failure. The more we sense the possibility of personal or physical death, the greater our helplessness. Therefore, the more impotent we see ourselves, the greater our fear. Once our fears warn us that we are helpless, the only solution seems to be flight.'

 

'[...] Fear is the strategy of flight: the flip side of anger. Both are responses to threat and danger. Anger attacks the threat; fear withdraws from it. Fear cringes before something or someone who might hurt us physically or psychologically. We respond in flight when we view the danger as being greater than our resources and determine that self-preservation is a higher good than engagement with the danger.
Fear serves a beneficial function in a fallen world. It warns us to take precautions, to hold back from certain people and situations. In this sense, fear operates analogously to pain. Pain warns us that something threatens damage to the body and we recoil from it.
Without pain we would be in terrible shape. Think of being barefoot and stepping on something sharp like a tack. As soon as your foot touches the tack you jump to do whatever is necessary to remove it. If you didn’t feel any pain, you wouldn’t notice it was there until you happened to see it—and by that time infection might be setting in. The experience of pain isn’t pleasant, but the alternative is much worse. It’s the same with fear.'

 

'[...] The Dark Side of Fear
Although withdrawal is frequently an appropriate response in a fallen world, fear can turn obsessive—clutching our hearts, inhibiting our activity and our enjoyment of God and His world. Instead of helping us, this kind of fear can cripple us.
For some, fear is so overwhelming that they cannot leave their house. These are extreme cases. However, many of us find that worry significantly holds us back from life.' 

'[...] It’s natural to want to keep problems at bay. But some people are so successful at putting up protective shields that they create a sheltered cocoon where nothing and nobody can touch them. In this case, fear no longer protects; it imprisons.'

 

'[...] Many strong emotions distort reality, but fear does so in particular ways. One of its distortions is a false perception of ourselves. We seem weaker than we really are, and more accountable as well. Generally, in the response of fear we tend to blame ourselves; in the response of anger we tend to blame others. In blaming ourselves, we gain the illusion of having control over some perceived failure that we feel we can and must change.
Fear also distorts our perception of the nature of the dangers facing us. If we think the threat is far beyond our ability to cope with it, then flight seems perfectly natural.'

 

'[...] Fear distorts our sense of reality. Our enemies seem huge and all-powerful. Nowhere in the Bible is this expressed more vividly than in Isaiah 30:17
      A thousand will flee
      at the threat of one;
      at the threat of five
      you will all flee away,
      till you are left
      like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
      like a banner on a hill.
The enemy seems overwhelming; we seem weak, inadequate, and alone. And God? He is nowhere to be found. Tom could have said with the psalmist (Psalms 22:12–13):
      Many bulls surround me;
      strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
      Roaring lions tearing their prey
      open their mouths wide against me.'

 

'[...] As with all strong emotions, fear can consume our minds. In the world of opera, a “Leitmotif” is a dominant tune or musical phrase that recurs throughout the whole work. Our minds often operate that way. Our fearful thoughts recur until they dominate our thinking. What is the key to controlling them?'

 

'[...] Laura spoke in a hush: “In the quiet moments at the end of the day, when you’re not thinking of what must be done, when your mind is not filled with activity and noise, do you feel pleasure or do you feel fear?”.
Therapists often avoid answering direct questions. The firm intensity of her eyes and the commanding power of her voice compelled me (Dan) to answer. “More often than not”, I admitted, “I feel nothing but exhaustion”.
Her glance was intense: “I feel fear when exhaustion has taken away my ability to remain numb”.
Her suffering had taught her that exhaustion does not hide feeling—it strips away the facade of balance and the pretense of control. Her husband, a good man, had recently died at forty-three. She was now single in a world of couples.'

 

'[...] There’s no getting away from the reality that fear is basic to human existence. But the counsel of Scripture indicates that resolving our fear requires us to struggle with our deepest allegiance: it all boils down not to whether we fear, but what and whom we fear.'

 

'[...] Fear clarifies by exposing who (and what) we serve. It can be classified in two categories: fear of the world or fear of God. Fear of the world always relates to the potential death of our agenda—to create a world as close to Eden as possible. Most of our fears arise out of our demand to gain a degree of pleasure, honor, meaning, and joy in a world that more often hands us pain, shame, chaos, and sorrow. The fear of the world is another way of describing the fear of what life—of what others—may do to me.'

 

'[...] We think of God as being radically other in His omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Indeed, He is. But He is most radically other in His love. To fear God is to fear His intense, radically other-centered love. Perfect love casts out fear, because that kind of love is more frightening than any fear of earthly harm. We are terrified of love—we should be, because it is so alien and unknown.
What does it mean to fear God? It means to be anxious and eager to greet Him. It means to build our lives around the call of being His bride, to anticipate the pleasure of love and the aroma of passion. To fear God is to be consumed with His presence.
If we fear God, how can we fear the vain efforts of human beings and worldly institutions? After all, big fears make little fears go away. Our life might be filled with fears about a multitude of daily circumstances, but if a doctor suddenly announced that we had only six months to live due to inoperable cancer, all those daily fears would melt away before the news.
God is the One we should fear most of all. When we disorient ourselves by being less afraid of God than something else, we get into trouble. When we fear something else, we forget about fearing God. This is what happened to the Israelites who lived during the time of Isaiah, so that God had to confront them by saying (Isaiah 57:11):
      Whom have you so dreaded and feared
      that you have been false to me,
      and have neither remembered me
      nor pondered this in your hearts?
      Is it not because I have long been silent
      that you do not fear me?'

 

'[...] C.S. Lewis pictures the fear of God in his classic Narnia tale The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are describing to Lucy and Peter the one who can rescue Narnia from evil and danger: a lion named Aslan {significa "leão", em turco}. Lucy is not so sure that she’s ready to meet such a dangerous creature and asks if he’s safe. “Safe?”, Mr. Beaver reacts. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you”.'

 

'[...] Fear is flight away from harm. It is the product of helplessness, weakness brought about by a feeling of inadequacy and lack of control. If we demand control and success, we will be destroyed, because in a sinful world our weaknesses will continually be exposed. But if we submit to God instead of demanding control, and serve God instead of insisting on success, then we will be changed, and our fears will dissipate. God’s sovereignty is the ultimate issue as we face this choice. If we clutch desperately for success and control, we deny His power. If we exercise the privilege of submission and service, we acknowledge it.'

Livro: "The Cry of the Soul" (cap.3)

"The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God"

Dan B. Allender & Tremper Longman III

<<< tradução automática para português >>>

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.'

Livro: "The Cry of the Soul" (cap.2)

"The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God"

Dan B. Allender & Tremper Longman III

<<< tradução automática para português >>>

Some excerpts from Cap.2:

'[...] No section of the Bible teaches us the language of the soul better than the Psalms, which reflect the movement of the human heart in rich, evocative, and startling language. In a voice that disrupts, invites, and reveals, the psalmist draws us to the voice of God.

The Psalms teach us how to praise and worship. But they also teach us how to wrestle with doubt until it gives way to the first rays of hope. The Psalms light our way on the path of change.

Writers and thinkers throughout the Christian tradition have recognized the soul-exposing function of this pivotal book of the Bible. John Calvin offered this brilliant insight:

"What various and resplendent riches are contained in this treasury, it were difficult to describe.… I have been wont to call this book, not inappropriately, an anatomy of all parts of the soul; for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror." [reference: Institutes of the Christian Religion]'

'[...] A Voice that Disrupts Our Denial

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 because we know that God is in control”. Negative emotions such as fear, anger, or depression are stigmatized as inappropriate because God is love and grants us peace.

But our spiritual songbook of Psalms does not contain 150 hymns of joy. As a matter of fact, a close look shows that the psalms of complaint and songs of accusation—the music of confusion, doubt, and heartache—significantly outnumber the hymns of joy. We may seek to flee from the feelings inside of us, but a look into the Psalms exposes them to our gaze. {John} Calvin described this exposure:

"[The psalmists] lay open their inmost thoughts and affections [emotions], call, or rather draw, each of us to the examination of himself in particular, in order that none of the many infirmities to which we are subject, and of the many vices with which we abound, may remain concealed." [reference: Psalms]

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. As the psalmist cries “out of the depths” (Psalm 130:1), we find ourselves crying out to God along with him.

The Psalms disrupt our assumption that we can escape the “groaning” of this life. They call us back from our natural tendency to flee from pain and fight against any who provoke discomfort. They expose the essence of our emotional turmoil—the commitment to find life apart from trusting God.'

'[...] A Voice that Disrupts Our Depravity

Our culture presumes that emotions are amoral—neither right nor wrong. According to this perspective, it’s not what we feel that’s potentially sinful, but rather what we do with our feelings. The problem with this view is its assumption that some element of our personality escaped the consequences of the Fall.

It seems more accurate to say that our feelings are not any more or less sinful than our thoughts, desires, and behaviors. But God can use our emotions to disclose sin through revealing the depths of our battle with Him.

The Psalms expose the sinfulness of our anger, fear, jealousy, despair, contempt, and shame. Notice how envy exposed the psalmist’s inner disease (Psalm 73:1–3).

The psalmist’s jealousy reveals his sinful desire for the rewards of the wicked, but it does more—it exposes his sense of futility in remaining pure. Why be pure when God seems to give the blessings of life to the wicked and not to the righteous?

From our limited perspective, emotions seem to spring from horizontal cause-and-effect. Someone is unkind to me; I feel hurt or angry. Another person is kind; I feel happy. My colleague receives an award; I feel jealous. Feelings seem to follow the ups and downs of relating to others—they don‘t, at first glance, seem to have much to do with God.

A friend once told me (Dan): “I feel like I’m part of a cosmic, county fair bumper-car ride. I know I’m going to get hit; it’s only a matter of when and how hard”. I asked him if his sense of dread was related to God. “Not really”, he replied. “I just wonder when things are going to collapse, or when I’m going to get knocked down again”.

But all dread is related to the question, Is life predictable? All anger is related to the question, Is life just? Change the word “life” to “God”, and the questions become personal. Is God predictable? Is God just? The psalmist’s jealousy surfaced in the horizontal context of human circumstances, but it was rooted in his underlying question, Is God fair?

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 the Garden and our aggressive response (fight) to regain access to Eden.

Our natural response to pain is the attempt to get relief from our suffering—either by fighting in anger or fleeing in fear. When we’re angry, we naturally attack or threaten assault if the perceived unjust offense continues. When we’re afraid, flight seems like the most reasonable course in the world.

Notice what these people of God do when they feel the pain of hunger: “Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God” (Isaiah 8:21).

Unrighteous anger demands that others respond to our plight or pay the consequences. Ultimately, when we are empty and God does not respond as we wish, we feel justified to act on our own behalf. And we turn our rage against Him because He could alleviate our suffering.

The psalmist disrupts our denial that we are angry or afraid. He disrupts our pretense that our anger and fear are not directed against God. “The problem is not the situation that provoked your fear and anger”, he tells us. “The problem is that your heart is opposed to God”.

Yet even as he exposes the depths of our hearts, the psalmist does something quite odd—he invites us to question, doubt, and rage against God.'

'[...] We fear the same may be true with God. We shudder with dread that we will suffer terrible consequences for our inner rebellion. Precisely at this point, the Psalms surprise us. They not only help us articulate and understand what we feel, but they also dare us to struggle. Even more, they give us the words to vocalize our desperate struggles with the Lord.

The psalmists felt, and publicly expressed, the gamut of emotions—from hurt to fury, from desire for vengeance to contempt against God. How comforting to know that we are not alone when we ache with loneliness, burn with anger, and tremble with fear. Someone before us has faced these emotions and, in the midst of that conflict, learned to love God.'

'[...] A Voice that Invites Us to Hurt

The psalmist is not afraid to speak his heart to God. Unwilling to hide behind trite spiritual platitudes, he declares (Psalm 6:6–7).

In this declaration, the pain of life is not spiritualized away or tempered by trite steps to get a handle on personal agony—it is entered into and vocalized with passion. We are invited to enter the pain of our hurt without apology or compromise.'

'[...] A Voice that Invites Us to Rage

The psalmist brings his struggle to God and, at times, accuses Him of being faithless—even a lousy businessman. “You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations”, he scolds God. “You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale” (Psalm 44:11–12). He wags his finger at God’s face, accusing Him not only of negligence, but idiocy.

Elsewhere the psalmist furiously mocks God for bringing pain into his life (Psalm 88:8–11).

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.

Walter Brueggemann reminds us that “the laments are refusals to settle for the way things are. They are acts of relentless hope that believes no situation falls outside Yahweh’s capacity for transformation. No situation falls outside of Yahweh’s responsibility.” [reference: Old Testament Theology: Essays on Structure, Theme, and Text]

The Psalms do not offer an analytical treatment of emotions. They are not a how-to text from which we can extrapolate four easy steps to resolving difficult emotions. Such simplistic reductions of our inner world, and of life itself, strip the heart of calling out to God in the darkness of His mysterious involvement with us.

Instead, 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.'

'[...] The Need for a Revealing Voice

What can we expect from God? What is He really like? What will He do with us once our denial and sin is disrupted and our hurt and fury drawn forth?

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.'

'[...] A Voice that Reveals God’s Heart for Us

The Psalms disclose God’s fiery love for His people. He draws us to the extreme edge of life, where we cannot live by careful, well-planned control. This is where the desert begins. It is where darkness draws us to a realm of desperation and dependence. It is the place where trust can grow. God’s passion is to rig the world so that we are compelled to deal with whatever blocks us from being like His glorious Son.

The psalmist marvels that he can’t fake God out. Wherever he runs, God is already there:

You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.…

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?…

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me”,

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you. 

(Psalm 139:2,7,9–12)

Wherever we flee, there God is—to express His love for us and reveal our unique role for His purpose. The Psalms reveal that God is slow to anger, rich in mercy, and long-suffering in grace. His purposes for us are good.

In the darkness our emotional wrestling with God, we grow in our understanding of Him. When He does not respond to us as we expect, we learn about His surprising character. We attack Him with anger, but we do not receive His judgment in return. We plead desperately for Him to save us from terror, but He does not necessarily rescue us with immediate resolution of our circumstances. However, what He does reveal is His heart for us.

Further, our darkest emotions reveal something—though in a skewed, bent, and tarnished way—about God’s emotional life. 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? In the most peculiar fashion, He chooses to reveal His perfect heart by analogy with human emotion that is stained by depravity. If we are to comprehend more richly the heart of God, it is imperative that we seek to understand our internal world.

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 who reveals Himself in the midst of our struggle.'

Livro: "The Cry of the Soul" (cap.1)

"The Cry of the Soul: How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God"

Dan B. Allender & Tremper Longman III

<<< tradução automática para português >>>

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.'

Louvor: "Acordo"

(https://youtu.be/F0oOyx_9DDY)

Acordo

Stênio Marcius

 

Me diga, andorinha, você que já voou o mundo inteiro
Se houve um momento só, por cima de um continente,
Por sobre qualquer cidade, em que te faltou o céu?
Será que o infinito espaço a teu redor é suficiente
Pra voares livre e viver feliz?

Me diga, peixinho dourado, senhor do vasto oceano
Que brinca nas correntezas, se esconde em velhos navios
Mergulha nas profundezas, sem nunca chegar ao fim
Será que os sete mares que são teus têm bastante água
Pra nadares livre e viver feliz?

Puxa uma cadeira, minha alma que eu quero te perguntar
Porque me roubas a calma e botas tristeza no olhar?
Vamos entrar num acordo, vida tranquila viver
Lembra daquilo que o Mestre falou
A minha graça te basta

Puxa uma cadeira, minha alma que eu quero te perguntar
Porque me roubas a calma e botas tristeza no olhar?
Vamos entrar num acordo, vida tranquila viver
Lembra daquilo que o Mestre falou
A minha graça te basta

"Minha alma anseia por Ti"

“A ti levanto as mãos; a minha alma anseia por ti, como terra sedenta” (Salmos 143:6).

“Aguardo o SENHOR, a minha alma o aguarda; eu espero na sua palavra” (Salmos 130:5). 

“SENHOR, não é soberbo o meu coração, nem altivo o meu olhar; não ando à procura de grandes coisas, nem de coisas maravilhosas demais para mim. Pelo contrário, fiz calar e sossegar a minha alma; como a criança desmamada se aquieta nos braços de sua mãe, como essa criança é a minha alma para comigo. Espera, ó Israel, no SENHOR, desde agora e para sempre” (Salmos 131, Cântico de romagem, de Davi).

Só agora compreendo os salmistas, Senhor...

Só então pude perceber a profundidade do seu desejo por Tua presença...

Só anelo, da mesma forma, dizendo “minha alma anseia por Ti”, na esperança de alcançar o sossego para a minha alma, “como a criança desmamada se aquieta nos braços da sua mãe”...

Link para o texto em PDF aqui.

Aprendizado piedoso 56

Tradução de um trecho do poema "The prisoner" ("O prisioneiro"), de Emily Jane Brontë:

"... Intensa a agonia

Quando o ouvido começa a ouvir, e o olho começa a ver;

Quando o pulso começa a pulsar, o cérebro a pensar novamente;

A alma a sentir a carne, e a carne a sentir a corrente."

Link para o original (em inglês) aqui.

Mente e alma

O cristão precisa se revestir de toda a armadura de Deus...