Day 6

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, ESV)

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8, ESV)

I have a friend who is always chest deep in ministry. Facing cancer testing for a family member, she said she’d handle it like she always does: Just keep going. Don’t think about it.

Her response reminded me of the old-school evangelical graphic of a train. The engine is labeled “fact” and is followed by train cars “faith” and “feeling.” The implication: Don’t let feelings pull your faith downhill.

But listening to my friend as we shivered in a parking lot on a Colorado February evening, I wanted to say, Wait. Lean into this.

Yes, our faith is to be “steadfast, immovable” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Yet, like for David, inviting God into my dark spaces has resulted in some of the richest and most intimate, transformative, and establishing moments of my faith. It’s made my faith more genuinely resolute—not fake strong.

In the past, I have at times not leaned in, failing to fully grieve or actively engage with what is wrong about this world. I didn’t mourn or labor with God because I was convinced a Jesus-saturated Christian is not sad, discouraged, or furious.

I’d gotten the idea that feelings logjammed my relationship with God. I responded to sadness, fear, or anger with a Barbie-like, frozen smile: “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). Have a cookie!

My emotional avoidance resulted in a plasticky sort of Christianity of stilted worship and hollow obedience. It was Calvin’s “false show of righteousness,” and I was content with playing in the shallow end. In my haste not to complain, instead of seeking God’s goodness in discomfort, I pretended hurt, loss, disappointment, and anger weren’t around at all. (Oh, for a 1985-bound DeLorean so I could hand these truths to my younger self.)

This avoidance informed the version of Jesus people saw in me too. The “Jesus” I reflected was irrelevant to their most blistering, least presentable questions. He was unable or unwilling to dive into their deepest, most haunted places and was wholly uncomfortable with life’s unanswerables.

Yet these tough feelings are a necessary part of full-blown Christianity. Jesus encountered the entire emotional spectrum. He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3; see also Luke 19:41-44; John 11:35). In Scripture, we see him angry and upset, joyful and peaceful.

His true worshipers worship in truth (John 4:23), not in denial.

Peter Scazzero, author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, explains how emotional health affects how we love God and people, kids included: “When we do not process before God the very feelings that make us human, such as fear or sadness or anger, we leak. Our churches are filled with ‘leaking’ Christians who have not treated their emotions as a discipleship issue” (*).

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.