Emotions and Building Your Own House

Be true to yourself! Follow your heart. As you feel, so you are. To stifle, deny, or repress your emotions is not only unhealthy, it's actually dangerous.

These messages are the gospel of our culture, the good news that you not only may but must embrace how you feel and indulge it to the full.

So let's follow the line of thought to its conclusion.

Examples taken from my personal experience:

Scene 1: I feel frustrated because I can't get anything done. I snap at my kids, growl at my husband, slam around backpacks and water bottles trying to get out the door, and glare bitterly at the piles of work that taunt me with my futile efforts to make headway. In anything.

Outcome: full family misery

Scene 2: I feel needy, emotionally fragile. I wait for my husband to sense the specific tenderness and attentiveness that my soul craves. He fails, being a mere mortal. I grow silent, sullen, withdrawn. He is very confused about what the trouble could be.

Outcome: sad, disconnected evening

Scene 3: I feel industrious, ready to tackle anything. I charge into a project, getting knee-deep in work (the kind of thing that looks like a total tornado before getting better). My children come to me with tiny, insignificant matters: they need a snack, there is a squabble over a toy, they can't find their special bear. I brush them aside when possible, deal with the issues begrudgingly, ignore all that I can.

Outcome: bigger mess, tangled hearts that have not been shepherded, frustration (and loop back to Scene 1 above)

Our emotions powerfully speak to us, and they are no small part of what shapes our desires, attitudes, priorities, and responses. But they are tyrants if given mastery, and the fulfillment promised by boundlessly indulging what we feel is actually an empty one. "By what a man is overcome, to this he is enslaved" (2 Peter 2:19b).

What is the better word that the gospel of Christ brings? Nothing less than an entirely new heart.

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).

Because we are deeply loved by Christ, because our ugly hearts have been put to death with Him and we have received new hearts with the very life of Christ, a new path is open to us.

The same strong native emotions course through us, but with the Spirit of Christ within we  see that those are not our deepest identity. And so the words of Proverbs 14:1 come to life: "The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down."

What does this look like on the ground?

Examples also taken from real life:

Scene 1: I feel frustrated because I can't get anything done. A heart check indicates that I'm craving significance through accomplishment. Truth reminds me: Christ has done it all. God is pleased with my humbly opening my hand for today's labors to receive what He is pleased to give. He knows when I need to get where I'm going. He may use the weakness of my hands and home to point to His sufficiency, even by contentment in what I can't get done. I'm still late and messy, but I'm able to walk in peace with my family and see the joy of these crazy days.

Scene 2: I feel needy, emotionally fragile. I wait for my husband to sense the specific tenderness and attentiveness that my soul craves. He fails, being a mere mortal. I quietly plead for an ability to trust God to minister what my heart needs and tell Ben that it might be a nice night to just cozy up on the couch and watch a show together because I'm tired and feeling needy. He prays for me.

Scene 3: I feel industrious, ready to tackle anything. I charge into a project, getting knee-deep in work (the kind of thing that looks like a total tornado before getting better). My children come to me with tiny, insignificant matters: they need a snack, there is a squabble over a toy, they can't find their special bear. I sigh deeply and offer up my project to God. I stop and help the boys work through their conflict and restore fellowship together. I ask for help to push through my work. I am surprised to find that I actually make some headway.

Oh friends, this is not a war we can win on our own. But the good news is, our Victor has come. We are no longer slaves to our emotions. The Shepherd of our heart may show us a new way, and we may find the grace to build our house instead of our own hands tearing it down. May it be, Lord!