I recently read a balanced and psychologically healthy article about the trustworthiness of emotions and the Christian-cultural debate about whether or not to "trust your heart". The article debated two of the most common verses related to the heart:
"The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick, who can understand it?" - Jeremiah 17:19
and
"Watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life” - Proverbs 4:23
Essentially, the focus of the article relied on the fact that we were born with sinful hearts, but the process of regeneration in Christ has given us a new, soft heart that has replaced the heart of stone (Ez. 11:19). Therefore, it is crucial to listen to the stirrings of our "new" hearts to identify and live out the "spring of life" that God has given us. The paragraph that stood out to me was:
The truth is, YOUR EMOTIONS WILL NOT LIE TO YOU. Your emotions will, in fact, always tell you the truth about what you believe (Proverbs 23:7). It is the lies that cause negative emotions, not the other way around. If you ignore your emotions because you have been told it is a Godly thing to do, you will miss out on a God-given indicator to help you know what exactly is hidden in this mysterious heart of yours. Like the flashing light on your dashboard, your emotions are a signal to indicate to you a belief that exists somewhere under the hood.
I believe that emotions are God given (He has emotions and we are created in His image). Where do our emotions stem from inside the human body/soul? The heart (metaphorically and physically- look at studies about how the heart changes when we feel certain things).
However, as it is mentioned above, a lot of times our emotions can take an irrational turn, which can lead us to do a number of things: sit in intense emotions uncomfortably, begin to express them in unhealthy ways or, as the article suggests, take a healthy approach and feel the emotion yet EXAMINE our BELIEFS about the situation, ourselves or others. Sometimes, in the depth of emotional intensity, we will find that we are believing something contrary to the word of God and the love of God, and we will be able to choose to renew our minds.
So now you're asking: what about the emotions that simply don't make any rational sense at the time? What do we do when we're overcome with emotions that simply won't fit into an understandable box and there seems to be no logical explanation or false belief identified as to why we are drowning in sadness or steaming with anger or wallowing in self-pity? At those moments we are given a beautiful opportunity to trust and a chance to learn self-control as we surrender our emotions to the Lord. In the moments of emotional confusion, we can take our emotions and submit them for Him to sort through and reveal the purpose of why we are feeling what we are feeling. Hopefully, He has been a part of the entire process but "letting go" of our need to "understand" our emotions seems to require concentrated focus on Him. He may reveal a reason immediately, but He may not. In John 13:7, Jesus says, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." There are many ways that He teaches us patience, surrender, trust, and self-control and I believe the process of both feeling fully and yet sorting through emotions (and our responses to them) is a very powerful tool to help us learn.
Essentially, if we operate under the belief that our heart is deceitful and we try to numb all our emotions (or even simply the emotions we don't quite understand yet), we may miss a crucial opportunity to actually renew our minds and hearts. I would add that when we live with with bottled up emotions, they can sometimes "come out sideways" in ways that are destructive or unhealthy. They don't just go away and you can't heal what you can't feel. Bottling things up creates the tension that leads to explosion.
Main point: Feel your emotions, then trust them as a signal to explore your beliefs in more detail. If you can't rationalize them or identify an underlying belief system that is untrue, submit them to the Lord and trust He will give you the peace you need... in His perfect timing. Not only has God given us emotions to experience beauty and joy in life, they also provide the perfect opportunity to operate under the fruit of self-control and practice submission to Him. So how do you feel about that?
Here is a link to the whole article:
http://goodwomenproject.com/emotions/your-heart-is-not-your-enemy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+goodwomenproject+%28Good+Women+Project%29
