Emotions: Can You Trust Them?

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Emotions:  Can You Trust Them?
       

Thursday, January 15, 2015
Jeff Lampl

One of things that this series on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality has done for me is to cause me to re-examine my long standing perspective that commitment to God, spouse, family, others and my tasks is what really matters and that when commitment is the “engine” then the caboose of positive feelings will follow.   What this perspective leaves out is that emotions are not at the mercy of our commitments or our choice of attitude.
They are there.   And they are God given.   For that reason the following passage from the Cry of the Soul by Dan Allender and Tremper Longman (quoted in our Day by Day devotional) is really helpful.

“Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; listening to our emotions
            ushers us into reality.  And reality is where we meet God . . . .Emotions are the
            language of the soul.  They are the cry that gives the heart a voice . . . .However,
            we often turn a deaf ear – through emotional denial, distortion, or disengage-
            ment.  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.”

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