There is a common struggle among women, and that is dealing with these things called emotions.
The very word brings understanding nods and knowing looks and amused grins.
It brings an animated discussion into our rather quiet youth girls Sunday school class.
We know what emotions are!
But there’s a prevalent misconception among us that to be emotionally mature, we need to master our emotions, and that means we deny feeling them at all.
It is true that we should master our feelings, rather than letting them control us.
The denial of their existence, however, is to live a lie.
God knows us intimately well, far better than we could ever express ourselves, and we try to pretend we’re not feeling the emotions He created us with!
I hear it so often from friends in all walks of life “I need to just accept this and not question God.”
So God doesn’t expect that you’ll feel anything in response to the hard situation you’re in?
He’s okay with it that when you don’t understand Him and His ways, you don’t even bother asking Him about it?
The Creator of galaxies, Who pursued your heart to the cross, doesn’t mind that you aren’t even acting interested in getting to know Him in deeper ways?
I don’t support angry ranting at God, but I don’t think that all hard questions need to be repressed, either.
There’s a slight shift in wording that makes these two phrases mean vastly different things: “questioning God” or “asking God questions.”
To question something is to doubt it, to lack confidence in it’s legitimacy, to challenge its credibility.
To ask questions is to seek information, to learn more about the subject, and it is an expectant act believing that there will be an answer.
We do not question that God is good.
But when we don’t understand how His ways are good, we ask Him questions.
Faith filled questions that express a belief that He is Who He says He is, but we are seeking to know more about Him.
For a simple illustration of this, follow me down a quick bunny trail: I was asking math questions the other night. Dad was showing me a shortcut for manually extracting a square root, and of course he did it so quickly I didn’t have time to grasp the concept.
I saw that it worked, and I was impressed, but I wanted to understand how it worked. I didn’t question the math – I knew it was legitimate – but I sure had questions to ask about the concept that made it work!
That’s how it is with God and our emotions sometimes. We don’t question that He’s good, but we wonder how He’s good. We struggle to see the deeper work going on.
And those feelings that come with that – He created those emotions. Grief. Hope. Anger. Compassion. They exist because He gave us the ability to feel them.
Feelings produce action, and since some feelings produce good actions while others don’t, we classify our emotions into categories of “acceptable” and “unacceptable.”
What if it’s not about what we feel, but how we deal with it, that matters?
What if we can take the feelings we don’t like to God, and ask Him what to do with them? He can then replace them with His peace, since we’ve invited Him to do so instead of just pretending the yuck didn’t exist.
If we react to our circumstances with emotions that make us wonder who God is or how this can be love, we don’t need to push those questions aside.
God is inviting us to learn more about Him!
And the emotions we judge as negative… are the very ones that inspire the hard questions. Questions which will lead to a deeper connection with the heart of the Suffering Saviour.
The only way to know a subject well is to ask questions. Dig deep. Relentlessly pursue all the information you can get.
Why would we not pursue knowing our Redeemer and Father in the same way?
We don’t question that God is God.
But because we believe by faith that He IS our Good Father, and therefore we want to know as much as we can about Him, we ask questions to learn.
And as we wait expectantly on Him, He will reveal His heart to us in answer to our questions.
So, ladies, let’s be brave. Let’s be vulnerable before the God Who already knows every corner of our hearts.
And maybe, our questionable emotions will be redeemed if they are the motivation to getting to know God in a deeper way.
…and that is a summary of my thoughts on emotions and questions, following various recent conversations with friends regarding said topics.
Notes from My Heartsong 