Tag Archives: Emotion

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Three, Two, One

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Chapter-a-Day Psalm 70

But I’ve lost it. I’m wasted. God—quickly, quickly! Quick to my side, quick to my rescue! God, don’t lose a minute. Psalm 70:5 (MSG)

Can you think of how many movies and television shows you’ve watched that include a countdown timer on a bomb or other device? The device was first used in film by German filmmaker Fritz Lang in the 1929 Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon) and filmmakers quickly understood that the inclusion of a countdown heightened the tension for audiences who watch the numbers slowly ticking down towards an uncertain climax. Even this week Wendy and I were watching the television series Homeland. As the tension built we were huddled together on the couch squeezing each other’s hand.

Psalm 70 is similar to a number of songs that David wrote. The unique thing about David’s lyric in today’s psalm is the sense of urgency that David expresses. He’s not casually asking for help. You can feel the countdown timer ticking down. He’s crying out in desperation.

There are times in life that our prayers take on a sense of urgency. It is said that “desperate times call for desperate measures.” Psalm 70 is an ancient reminder that desperate times also call for desperate prayer. It once again reminds me of why I love the psalms. Across the 150 song volume, the breadth of human experience is expressed reminding us that we can take our momentary circumstances and emotions to God no matter what they might be. If life seems to be ticking down to some impending doom, we can cry out to God and squeeze His almighty hand.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 34

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The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
    he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.
Psalm 34:18 (NLT)

I don’t care who you are, where you live, or how blessed you are in life – sometimes the blues descend upon you out of nowhere. God’s Message says that the rain will fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. The blues are part of the human experience and many of the lyrics we read in the Psalms come straight out of the blues.

The thing I love about the psalms is that they don’t hide from life. They don’t fake their way through the blues. Instead, they express emotion head on and lay it on the line knowing that God is close to the broken hearted, He rescues crushed souls. God never intended the valley of Death’s Shadow to be circumnavigated or avoided but walked through.

It’s only wading through the blues that we find an honest voice for the song of our hearts.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 33

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Crying (Photo credit: Onion)

The Lord looks down from heaven
    and sees the whole human race.
From his throne he observes
    all who live on the earth.
He made their hearts,
    so he understands everything they do.
Psalm 33:13-15 (NLT)

The other night we were at our friends’ house. Wendy and I had brought the gift of books for their two young boys and enjoyed watching them unwrap their gifts. It was fascinating to watch as the older child spied to see what the younger child got (“Did he get a better book than me??!”), then attempted to grab little brother’s book right out his hands for inspection. We then watched as the younger one played the victim card with pitch perfect precision: screams of rage and crocodile tears turned on with an invisible switch on his brain. Back and forth the sibling rivalry and angst flowed. The adults watched with patient understanding and the parents did their best to navigate the bubbling cauldron of childish emotions.

God reminds us time and time again that our relationship with Him is that of parent and child. To God, we must all be like little children acting out. Even as adults, our emotional tirades and self-centered actions must seem to Father God as the acts of a toddler to us.

Today, I’m glad that my heavenly Father knows my heart, even when this grown up child is naughty.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day John 11

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tear (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Then Jesus wept. John 11:35 (NLT)

I’m struck by the range of emotions Jesus experienced in today’s chapter. Confidence, frustration, compassion, anger, trouble, sorrow, and earnestness to list those top of mind. Jesus was clearly not afraid of His emotions. He felt things deeply.

I’m reminded today of Ezekiel’s prophecy:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

The women in my life will tell you that I’m a softy. It’s true. Tears come more easily to me  the older I get. God continues to work on me, and I can feel Ezekiel’s prophetic words literally fulfilled in my own heart. As I sit or stand in worship and the tears begin to run down my cheeks I regularly call to mind, along with Ezekiel’s words, a line from an old Bob Dylan tune: “It is only He who can reduce me to tears.”

I believe that experiencing Life in abundance requires experiencing deep emotion. Jesus’ ability to feel deeply and sincerely express His emotions was not a sign of His weakness, but a testament to His strength.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Ezra 3

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All the people boomed out hurrahs, praising God as the foundation of The Temple of God was laid. As many were noisily shouting with joy, many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads who had seen the first Temple, when they saw the foundations of this Temple laid, wept loudly for joy. People couldn’t distinguish the shouting from the weeping. The sound of their voices reverberated for miles around.  Ezra 3:11-13 (MSG)

As I read about the loud, demonstrative worship of the Israelites in today’s chapter, I asked myself when I’d felt such a rush of emotion that I felt I had to scream. Just recently I got the call that my sister’s cancer was in remission and her PET scan came back clear. That created an instant shout of joy from the depths of my soul. Sports probably creates that rush of emotions as much as any other common human experience. I remember the miracle on ice in 1980 and watching the gold medal ice hockey game with my dad. It was perhaps the only hockey game I’ve watched in its entirety in my life, but I remember screaming for joy and jumping up and down when the United States won.

From the intensly personal issues of life and death (a family member with cancer) to the things that are trivial in the grand scheme of life (a hockey game), we can feel things with such intensity that we have to let it out. I wonder why it is that over the centuries we’ve stuffed the most critical and eternal spiritual matters into a box of social propriety.

For much of my faith journey I would describe my weekly public worship experience as exactly what I was taught as a child it should be: proper, cerebral and emotionless. Then, about ten years ago or so, God started a work in me. It started with tears. Each week I found it more and more impossible to stop the tears from pouring out of me during worship. Then came singing. Not just the stand there and mumble along singing, but the “sing it at the top of your lungs with your whole heart because you want God to hear your voice all the way up in the throne room of heaven” kind of singing.

Not every worship experience is intensely emotional, but I’ve learned over time that authentic worship of God requires all of my being. Not just my posterior in the pew and mental engagement, but my entire body, my spirit, my mind, my emotions and my voice. The more I fully engage in worship, the more meaningful it becomes to my daily journey.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Numbers 14

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But they went anyway; recklessly and arrogantly they climbed to the high hill country. But the Chest of the Covenant and Moses didn’t budge from the camp. The Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in the hill country came out of the hills and attacked and beat them, a rout all the way down to Hormah. Numbers 14:44-45 (MSG)

This morning I think about the people of Israel acting “recklessly and arrogantly” as they go up to the hill country on their own, even though they were warned against it. As I look back in time, I can see times that I have acted in the same manner. Spurred on by misplaced passion, pride, or selfishness, I have many times acted rashly with little or no thought and prayer about my actions.

The results are generally disastrous.

Following the trail of emotion that is described, which led up to the Israelites rash decision, I see (in order):

Fear
Anger
Pessimism
Discontent
Mob Violence
Guilt
Shame
Sorrow
Fear

Such a range of emotions in such a short period of time. It’s not exactly a recipe for thoughtful, sound decision making.

Today, I’m reminded to be wise in my decisions and actions. Snap decisions and rash actions that emerge out of intense emotion are likely to prove foolish.

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Chapter-a-Day Matthew 9

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When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. Matthew 9:36 (MSG)

The prophet Ezekiel said that God would take away our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. I thought about that as I read the verse above this morning. The further I get in the journey I find my heart getting softer. My family will tell you that I’ve always been a softy, but sometimes I think it gets a bit ridiculous. Thankfully, I have a wife who doesn’t seem to mind that her husband cries right along with her in movies, who rarely gets through a worship service without shedding a tear, and who feels things with increasing depth.

I’ve never forgotten my friend, Mike, who said he had to give up being an EMT after he started following Jesus. When God took away his heart of stone and gave him a heart of flesh, he suddenly began to feel the pain of the broken people he was called on to serve in emergencies. “I couldn’t do the work through my tears,” he said.

And yet, what is it to feel empathy and compassion if it doesn’t motivate me to act? And what should that action be? How interesting that Jesus didn’t say, “Look at the confused and aimless crowd, like sheep without a shepherd. I MUST SHEPHERD THEM ALL!” He said, “Listen up boys, we need to pray for reinforcements.”

Today, I’m praying for depth of discernment to accompany my depth of feeling. I want my emotions to motivate appropriate actions.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day 1 Chronicles 29

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“But me—who am I, and who are these my people, that we should presume to be giving something to you? Everything comes from you; all we’re doing is giving back what we’ve been given from your generous hand. As far as you’re concerned, we’re homeless, shiftless wanderers like our ancestors, our lives mere shadows, hardly anything to us.” 1 Chronicles 29:14-15 (MSG)

Wendy and I went for a walk the other night. It was a gorgeous summer evening and we opted for a slow, “flip-flop” walk (as opposed to a more serious “tennis shoe” walk). We conversed as we walked and I shared with her some of the feelings I have around the tremendous life shift we’ve experienced in the past year.

We’ve had both girls move out of the house. One of them got married and brought a son-in-law into our family equation. We’ve taken over my parents’ place at the lake and built a house there. We’ve watched Wendy’s younger siblings graduating from medical school, college, and high school. We’ve experience tough economic times and uncertainty about the future. And, we’ve experienced some of our own deep disappointments. It feels like the path has changed, and I’m still trying to get my footing. There are feelings of grief, joy, fear, hope, disappointment, excitement, relief, and regret all churning around inside me.

It was good to read David’s reminder today, and to try to gain some perspective. I am just a wayfarer and a wanderer. My life, my journey, is but a fleeting shadow in the grand scheme of things. All I am and all I’ve been given were from God’s hand in the beginning. I am, step-by-step, making my way home to give it all back.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and sarahrah
Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Exodus 16

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Cries of a child. Moses instructed Aaron: "Tell the whole company of Israel: 'Come near to God. He's heard your complaints.'" Exodus 16:9 (MSG)

When I was a kid, my mom told me, "you're such a pessimist." At the time, I wasn't sure what a pessimist was. I suspected it had something to do with being ambidextrous, though I couldn't be sure. She was right. I was always fearing the worst and looking at the glass half-empty. I was the child quick to complain, and being the baby of the family I was all about pulling out the "fairness" card.

I'd like to think that I've come a long way since that stretch of life's road. I've travelled much further down the path and seen God's blessing. I've also experienced God's faithfulness and provision along the way. Based on that, I would consider myself much more of a glass-half full guy today.

Yet, I'm still human. Little Tommy Tucker can still creep up in my spirit and sing a full, pessimistic lament. As I journey through Exodus I read a lot of griping and complaining. I love that God, even when the people are childish, hears their complaints. When I read about Israel's wilderness wanderings, I often get the mental picture of a father dealing with an emotional toddler. And I, like most people, can find myself feeling childish emotions from time to time.

I'm thankful that God hears my complaints, even when they are simply the rant of this overemotional child.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and Jeremy Brooks