Emotional Health for Believers - The Crosswalk Devotional - July 20
Emotional Health for Believers
By Ashley Moore
"In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me.” - Psalm 120:1, ESV
Recently, I read about a girl who had lived through a house fire. Her immense grief over the incident led her to seek therapy. During one of her sessions, she shared with her therapist that a well-meaning church member offered some ill-timed advice. That day the sermon made mention of a family who was also involved in a house fire and pointed out how they made the best of a bad situation and implied that she should too. Even though they meant no harm, their comments were trite, insensitive, and premature.
Has anything like that ever happened to you? Has someone tried to hurry you along in the grieving process because your sadness lingered too long and caused them discomfort? Or maybe you’ve tried to rush yourself through a hard circumstance, telling yourself that you need to buck up and move on, even though you still felt sad or disappointed. Or perhaps, like me, you are prone to stuffing your negative feelings down until you think they’ve gone away, only to find they rear their ugly heads at the most unexpected and unwelcome times.
We have all experienced some versions of the scenarios above. But, we don't have to push down, dampen, or just move on from the hard emotions we experience. Did you know that God gave us those emotions for a reason?
Our Emotions Are Indicators
Much like the lights on the dashboard of a car, our emotions are signals that something is happening that requires our attention. And regardless of any ill-placed beliefs you may have received from the culture about our emotions, God desires that we go to Him in our distress.
The Bible calls God Abba, meaning Father. This is interesting because, according to neuroscience, children require a secure, emotionally-stable parent to regulate them when they are upset. Their brains are not developed fully enough to self-soothe without the help of another. God designed them to need an external source of security and comfort. This is why children often look to their caregivers when they get hurt. Just like children need the comfort of a loving parent in their distress, our emotions indicate to us that we, God’s children, need the tender comfort of our Heavenly Father.
Healthy Emotions Are Processed Emotions
Therapist and author Aundi Kolber says that, “Emotions are meant to peak and pass much like waves and stormy weather.” Despite our best efforts to hurry along a storm or stop a wave in the ocean, we don’t have much chance of doing either successfully. The same is true of our emotions. They need to be metabolized by our bodies or they become stored as unhealed trauma that will resurface throughout our life. Again, our emotions are indicators that something is happening or has happened to us that need our attention.
Hiding our emotions or trying to rush the processing of our feelings is unhealthy. Becoming an emotionally healthy believer means practicing taking our feelings to our loving Father like a little child and trusting Him to help us and give us the wisdom to process our pain. We never outgrow our need for God, and He longs to comfort and answer us and help us.
Intersecting Faith and Life:
Journaling is a great way to process grief or anger. Set a timer for five minutes and journal and pray about a memory that comes to mind that brings up big emotions. When you finish, talk to God in prayer about what you wrote. If you feel led, share any significant memories with a trusted friend or counselor.
Further Reading:
A Prayer for Highly Emotional Days
Beware of a False Sense of Security
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Dilok Klaisataporn
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