Taking Charge of Our Emotions

Some are surprised to discover when they read the Bible for the first time the range of emotions Jesus exhibited.  Emotions are a normal part of being human.  Jesus was emotional and was not embarrassed by His emotions;  He never tried to hide or stifle them.   Jesus could thrive within His emotions because they were perfectly aligned with the Father on every matter.  So why are our emotions out of whack?  Our failure is summarized in Psalm 4: 4.  In your anger do not sin…  When our emotions are drawn into sin, they collapse into a fit of rebellion and vanity.  The depression that forsakes God in its despair, the anger that strips fellow sinners of their humanity and the fear that immobilizes us and keeps us from being led by the Holy Spirit need a Savior.  In Psalm 68:3 we find God’s plan for the normal Christian life.  God has designed  you, regardless of your circumstances and difficulties, regardless of where you were raised or who is in your family, to live happily.  But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful. (NIV)  Of course you may think that this is impossible.  You may call it a pipe dream or something only for those who die and go to heaven.  But the psalmist is quite practical and states without equivocation what God’s plan is for you here and now.  However, you have to decide if this is something you want!  Are you ready to have Jesus rework your emotions?  Do you want God to give you supernatural happiness?  Jesus maintained His joy because He continually aligned Himself with the will of the Father.  It takes courage and faith to believe that your circumstances are Christ given, that those who surround you are placed there by God and that your body is safely in the hands of the Father.  Each time you find your emotions sweltering with panic, rage or despair, breathe deeply and whisper a prayer of child-like dependence upon Christ to rework your heart.  “God, save me.  Come to my rescue and restore to me the joy of my salvation!  I have a Savior.  I have a Father who loves me.  I am safe.  My Lord is good!”

Jesus wept. John 11:35 NIV

Is God Good Enough?

Have you thought about why you get angry, frustrated, discouraged or unhappy?  It nearly always seems to be due to something that has happened to you or someone who has irritated you.  No matter how determined you are to be calm and patient, your mood gets high-jacked at some point by an event or a conversation that is too tough to handle.  Yet God never puts the cause of your mood swings into the hands of circumstances or relationships.  When Ahab the King of Israel became depressed that Naboth would not sell his vineyard to him, his wife Jezebel made the same mistake so many of us make.  She asked her husband why he was so sullen and Ahab told her the pitiful account of his failure to convince Naboth to let him have his vineyard.  Jezebel took matters into her own hands and arranged the murder of Naboth so that Ahab could buy it from his heirs.  Of course this got Ahab the vineyard but it did nothing to solve the problem with his mood swings.  The cause of Ahab's depression was not Naboth but rather his own envy.  As long as Ahab wanted what was someone else's, he could not live in peace.   The beginning of sin was the desire to have what did not belong to Adam and Eve.  It is a universal plague.  Rather than live within the grace of God and trusting in His goodness, we fret over what we don't have.  We aren't respected.  We don't get the help we want.  Our wishes are ignored.  We aren't treated fairly.  We have been offended.  It all boils down to just this.  We think we deserve better.  After the great Apostle Paul begged God to relieve him of his suffering, the Lord sternly but gently rebuked him.  "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)  When Peter wondered what John's fate would be after the Lord told Peter that he would suffer a terrifying and difficult death, the Lord put an end to that line of questioning.  "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." (John 21:22 NIV)  When Christ begins to satisfy your soul from top to bottom, you will find yourself at peace in any circumstance and with whatever you have or don't have.  Until you settle matters with the Lord and decide that the salvation of God is good enough to make your life right, you will continue to ride the stormy swells of envy and dissatisfaction.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.  1 Chronicles 16:34 NIV

Unconscious Thought

Part 1

Jeremiah 17:10 NIV

"I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."

What Do You Know About Yourself?

The past few weeks I have been aware of long and elaborate dreams that seem to last through the night.  In them are people I can’t ever remember seeing but they impact me in some dramatic way as my dream progresses.  The dreams aren’t frightening but sometimes they are troubling.  I have difficulty in many trying to find my way somewhere or I get confused about what I need to do.  The plotlines within my dreams are complex and the characters speak and act in surprising ways that don’t remind me of any of my recent experiences.  I could not write stories that are as creative and interesting as my dreams and so I wonder how they come about and what the source of them is.  Of course they could be sent to me by God or they may simply be the product of unconscious thinking that is working even while I am asleep.  One thing is certain.  There is much about me that I do not understand, especially what is found deep in my heart.

Perhaps you are like me and find yourself wondering what to make of the hidden parts of your mind.  It seems so complex and strange, like a cave filled with mysterious creatures, indecipherable writings and strange pictures on the walls.  Unpredictable forces are at work within you that push you about like a bully on the playground.  Do you just let them have their way with you, impacting what you feel about things and how you react to situations?  Can you do something about the internal forces that affect your life in hidden ways?  Should you be concerned about them or live as if your unconscious thoughts don’t matter?  What does the Bible have to say about the unconscious world?

Two terms in the Bible, when combined, are what describe the place of our “inner world”.  The first Hebrew term, lev, is generally translated heart and is what modern culture thinks of as the mind.  The second, Kilya is difficult to translate but in older English Bibles is called the “reins” or “kidneys”.  It is the inner place of the self; the deep part of us that includes our thinking, our unconscious world, our passion and our will.  Jeremiah 17: 10 puts both these terms together and reminds us that God has access to all the hidden places of the inner being.  "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." (Jeremiah 17:10 NIV)

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You don’t need proof that there are depths to you that you cannot explore with just the mental skills available to you.  You have dreams you can’t explain.  You experience emotions that do not have a recognizable source.  Memories suddenly pop to the surface without warning.  A smell or a taste of something brings back to mind an experience you have long forgotten.  The Bible says that God has made that deep, unseen world.  For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. (Psalm 139:13 NIV)  “Inmost being” is the translation of our Hebrew word, “Kilya” or kidneys, the place where your thoughts are found.  The very next verse proclaims that the way God put together your inmost being is wonderful.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139:14 NIV)  What Freud and many in the psychoanalytic field saw as the enemy of happiness, the unconscious world found in each person, the Bible says is a great benefit or even a tremendous treasure.

We do though face a great problem when it comes to our unconscious thought life.  It is corrupted.  Jeremiah 17:9 says this about the heart.  The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?  (Jeremiah 17:9 NIV)  The effect of Sin at every area of our thinking, both conscious as well as unconscious, is devastating.  It impacts us at every turn in life from how we feel about things to the way we make our decisions.  Our heart is wrecked and we cannot trust it to effectively take us through life.  No one, not Freud or Jung or Watson or any of the “thinkers” in the study of psychology understand fully the chaos found in the heart.

There is an interesting term the Bible uses to describe God’s plan for us.  Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. (Psalm 51:6 NIV)  The word translated “truth” is the Hebrew word “emeth” and means firmness, reliability, faithfulness.  As the heart is now, you cannot count on it.  The thoughts that are generated by the heart are at best unreliable; at worst destructive.  You cannot count on what comes out of your heart and have confidence that what comes out of it will be good.  God’s plan for you is to make your heart trustworthy and the thoughts in it productive and beneficial to your being.  The only way that is possible is if God gets at the root of the problem, the Sin that corrupts the heart.

We are reminded in Jeremiah 17: 10, that only God is the great psychologist because He is capable of seeing into the deepest and most broken parts of the heart and knowing what to do about it.  "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind…”  The prayer of the Psalmist takes this ability of God into account.  Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. (Psalm 139:23 NIV)  Why is this important?   What does the psalmist really want?  We have no tools for figuring out the effect of our unconscious thinking upon what we do and how we react to things.  God though does and yet He will not simply take over your unconscious like some hypnotist if we don’t want Him there.  He waits for our praying to begin working in us at the unconscious level. 

Consider carefully God’s ability to do something about your unconscious mind.  Psalm 51: 6 insists, you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.  This is not just insight into how to fix a lawn mower.  You and I want much more than that in the inmost place, in the unconscious parts of the heart.  You want the supernatural thinking of God that combats the broken thinking of your unconscious mind.  "Where then does wisdom come from?  Where does understanding dwell? ... God understands the way to it and he alone knows where it dwells, (Job 28:20, 23 NIV)  With your permission, God will reshape and remake your unconscious mind so that His wisdom rises up out of it.

Consider the irony found in Isaiah 44. He (a carpenter) cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak.  He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.  It is man's fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread.  But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it.  Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill.  He also warms himself and says, "Ah! I am warm; I see the fire."  From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships.  He prays to it and says, "Save me; you are my god." (Isaiah 44: 14-17 NIV)  Of course this points out the ridiculous nature of idol construction!  With part of the wood the carpenter carves an idol and from the rest of the very same wood he builds a fire and warms his cold feet.  Your unconscious built within your heart is much like this.  Part of it generates lustful feelings.  “I want this and I want it now!”  It can incite bitter anger as well as deep depression.  Another part of the unconscious produces inspiring thoughts, actions and plans.  You might treat these ideas as if they come from God but they may not be from Him.  They may simply be a product of a corrupted unconscious.    The unconscious is the power behind many of our opinions, actions and creative ideas and tragically, you can treat them as the ruling force of your life, a god.  Some of the most horrifying people of history were ruled by an unconscious they neither understood nor could control.  They thought though that everything they did was good and right.  We too can be fooled by a heart that is not seen or understood.  Our unconscious is both a danger to us and a support.  Next week we shall look at what can be done to have an unconscious that works for us and not against us.

Blinders

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.   (Luke 14:1 NIV)

There are only two reasons to carefully watch Jesus.  Either you do so to know where to turn away from Him or you do so to know where to turn into Him.  Jesus put the Pharisees and religious leaders on the spot when He asked them if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath.  If they said, “yes”, then they would begin to turn into Him but if they said, “no”, they would move away.  Jesus is the way; every turn from Him is toward hell and the bitterness of perdition.  Turn into Him and your soul begins to light up with the golden blaze of heaven and the comfort of His glory.  The move into Christ is subtle and quiet, away is loud and boisterous.  The cheers of the world give you a great boost as you jump out from His shelter.  It is exhilarating; freeing to turn outward and gain something fresh and pretty.  Yet the maggots begin to eat at the corpse and it soon becomes clear that the move out is one of the grave and the façade gives way to a very real end point. 

Turn inward though to Christ and the stillness of the move shocks you for you had hoped it would be more glorious, livelier than that.  You had planned on a great pleasure to overtake you, a mighty rush of joy to prove your rightness but it is more still than the breeze of the butterfly or the whisper of the creeping lizard.  The aloneness of the move inward frightens you for it is at once quite final and at the same time uninspiring.  Yet you are alive and living will take you captive, just as the antibiotic takes you captive with its dripping health.  The death of self is not a dying death; it is a living death that becomes more vivacious as you escape into Christ.  Your tears will come alive along with your wounds and terrifying doubts for the deadness of them before will wiggle free with the life of Jesus.  All wounds will be cause for glory, all heartache a well of sweet freedom and hope, all doubts a cup of faith.  Turn into Christ with each moment of the day, every trial you face and temptation stumbling your plodding steps and you will gain a bit more life, a bit more dynamic gumption.  Your mind will grow free of the former bondage that fooled it into thinking it was already free.  You will see and love and bless and be a well of living water springing up at the moment within the hub and bub of your normal contentious day.  Someone will feel your touch and it will be the touch of the Spirit slipping to them with all the power of the resurrection of Christ Easter morning.