Introduction
This morning we
begin a topical series entitled: “A Healthy Emotional Life:
Biblical Answers for Negative Emotions.” In the coming weeks,
we want to take a closer look at negative emotions like grief, anger,
depression, fear and anxiety--and learn how the Bible says we can be
delivered from bondage to these emotions into an emotionally healthy
life.
I don’t
think we need to spend time justifying why we’re spending time
on this subject. By almost any measuring standard (counseling
dollars spent, prescriptions filled, work time lost, road rage police
reports, self-help book sales), Americans (including American
Christians) are very concerned that they’re not as emotionally
healthy as they should be.
On the surface,
the subject of human emotions may seem simple. But when you start to
look at it closely, it gets very complicated in a hurry. You may
start out asking simply, “What are key steps to overcome my
anxiety, depression, anger, etc.?”--but you will soon bump into
other underlying questions like:
What is
emotional health? If we have the wrong definition, we’re
bound to miss it. Is it merely the absence of these negative
emotions and the presence of positive emotions (e.g., peace,
happiness, joy, etc.)?
Are negative
emotions inherently unhealthy? Or do negative emotions have a
place in emotional health? If they aren’t inherently
unhealthy, when do they become so?
How easy is it to become emotionally healthy? Americans are notoriously
into quick fixes. (This is one reason why “self-help”
books are so popular.) If we are unrealistic in our expectations on
this, it may (ironically) contribute to more emotional unhealth!
Should
emotional health be a goal? I know this sounds ludicrous, but
what if emotional health is not a worthy goal, but rather a result of
pursuing other, more important goals?
This series will seek to discover the Bible’s
answers to the main question: “How can biblical teaching help
me overcome my grief, depression, anger, etc.?” The Bible is a
guide toward emotional health. But before we can hear its answer to
this question, we have to listen to its answers to these other more
foundational questions. That’s what I want to get at this
morning by explaining three biblical assumptions that are related
to emotional health.
We are deeply broken
people living in a badly broken world.
The first thing we need to understand as we
approach the subject of emotional health is some very sobering news:
We are deeply broken people who live in a badly broken world.
We were created for a perfect world, but human rebellion has plunged
the whole world, all of us, and every area of us into a deeply
abnormal state. Only when Christ returns and re-establishes God’s
loving rulership over the world will there be an end to sadness, pain
and grief (Rev. 21:4). Until then, we will “groan”
(Rom. 8:22,23).
This does not
mean that the Bible is totally pessimistic or fatalistic about
emotional health. God can give us substantial healing in this area
of our lives. The same passage that insists that we will groan until
Jesus returns also says that God’s Spirit begins a real work of
healing in this life. But it does mean that we should reject all
expectations of perfection in this life. We should manage our
expectations realistically.
We are all
inherently prone to certain emotional problems. We can see real progress in these areas, but we will
probably battle with them throughout our lives.
Some of us have
gone through horribly traumatic experiences (e.g., SEXUAL ABUSE).
These experiences have left emotional wounds and scars. The feelings
associated with these past experiences can also flare up in pain when
triggered by certain situations. Again, God can and does provide
significant healing over time--but the full healing will not come
until the kingdom of God comes.
We will continue
to be racked by painful circumstances (e.g., death of loved ones;
serious illness; aging) as we go through life--and these things will
bruise and wound us emotionally.
If you serve
Christ, the Bible says you are a soldier in a great spiritual
battle--and this brings it own kind of emotional pain (spiritual
attack; hostility, rejection & betrayal; confusion; apparent
ministry failure). If you know Christ, there is the compensation of
his comfort and encouragement--but this comes to us in the midst of
emotional pain; it does not eliminate it.
This is a very
important point as we think about emotional health. If you expect
(as American culture teaches us we have a right to expect) that life
should be one long vacation with occasional bumps, you will suffer
worse than necessary when this unrealistic expectation is shattered
(including cynicism). But if you let the Bible temper your
expectations--if you expect this life to be filled with suffering and
live it in hope of Christ’s return and in gratitude for his
encouragement and partial healing in this life, you will be
emotionally stronger and healthier.
The fact that we
are broken people living in a broken world also sheds light on how we
should view negative emotions. On one level, they are abnormal
because we wouldn’t feel them in a perfect world. But on
another level, they are not inherently bad either. They are sort of
like our nerve endings. They register pleasure, but they also
register pain. Negative emotions tell us that we and the world
around us are not as they should be. And just as physical pain can
spare us from further injury and motivate us to seek medical
attention, so emotional pain can motivate us to seek spiritual help
from God. This is why Jesus said “Blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted (Matt. 5:4). All of the most
important spiritual breakthroughs in my life have been preceded by
periods of intense emotional pain.
In fact, it is
unhealthy to not feel emotional pain in a broken world. Lepers lose
limbs because they feel no pain. They have lost the gift of pain to
their detriment. To be able to live in a world this broken without
feeling grief, anxiety, depression, guilt, etc. would mean that you
have become terribly inhuman and maybe dangerous (“The
Terminator”). Do we want to become like the people in Brave
New World, who eradicated all negative emotions through
technology and drugs? Jesus personified perfect humanity in a broken
world--and he felt all of these negative emotions (except guilt). It
is when these negative emotions engulf us, control us, or define us
that they become destructive. What then? . . .
We are designed for
personal love relationships.
We can’t know what emotional health is or
how to move toward it without knowing what it means to be human,
knowing how we were designed to live. For example, if we were
designed primarily to have sex and accumulate possessions, our
emotional health would be primarily contingent to those activities.
A defective understanding of what it means to be human will
invariably lead to a defective understanding of pathway to emotional
health.
The second key biblical assumption related to
emotional health is that we are designed for personal love
relationships. When God created human beings, he distinguished
them from the rest of the created order by saying Gen. 1:26,27
(read). By using plural pronouns, God tells us something about the
essence of who God is--God is a community of persons who live in
loving community (cf. Jn. 17:24). And God tells us that he
created humans in his image--namely, as persons designed for personal
love relationships. This is why the narrative in Gen. 2 emphasizes
that Adam was not like the rest of the animals--he was “alone”
until he entered into a love relationship with another person.
Humans were designed to live in personal loving community with the
Triune God and with other humans, to receive God’s love and
give it away to others. See also Matt. 22:36-39. This has
tremendously important implications for emotional health!
This means that
relational deficiencies are the cause of most emotional problems.
Studies consistently demonstrate a positive correlation between
emotional and relational health.
No wonder sexual
freedom and material affluence do not correlate with greater
happiness and emotional health! For the past several decades, our
culture has proceeded on the assumption that humans are designed
primarily to have sex and accumulate possessions. And we now have
unparalleled sexual freedom and material affluence. The result? Not
only not greater happiness and emotional health, but greater
unhappiness and emotional problems.
No wonder! Not only do sexual promiscuity and materialistic greed
not fulfill our relational needs. Sexual promiscuity ruins personal
relationships (sexual break-ups; divorce’s effect on children)
and materialistic greed robs us of the time to build and maintain
close personal relationships. No wonder that emotional problems are
skyrocketing!
This is also why
the medical model cannot produce emotional health. For many
reasons, the prescription of medication for emotional problems has
skyrocketed in recent years. One of these reasons is a medical model
of emotional health that views humans as essentially physiological
beings and looks primarily to biochemical causes and solutions for
emotional problems. Another reason is that Americans want (and feel
they have a right to) quick and easy relief from depression, anxiety,
etc. I’m sure another reason has to do with the influence of
pharmaceutical companies and health insurance agencies.
QUALIFICATION: I am not saying that medications play no positive role
in emotional health. Medication may help alleviate certain symptoms
and give us more clarity and energy--and this is certainly a good
thing. But the primary path to increasing emotional health is not
good chemistry--it is . . .
It means that
emotional health is not the goal--it is the by-product of building
healthy personal love relationships with God and other people
(Gal. 5 emotional fruits of walking by
Spirit).
This begins with
establishing a personal love relationship with God by receiving
Christ. This relationship is the only one that provides the
inexhaustible source of love that Jesus called “living water”
for our love-thirsty souls (Jn. 4:10,14). Have you done this?
This involves
sharing God’s love in real community with other Christians
(1 Jn. 1:3,4). It is in this context that we experience
God’s love in real and practical ways. It is in this context
that we learn how to give God’s love to others. Are you in
community?
This involves
trusting God’s love enough to consistently give yourself away
in love to others. This is the great paradox/secret to emotional
health (Jn. 13:17; Acts 20:35). Not: “I will be
emotionally healthy when others love me the way I want to be loved”
but: “I will become more emotionally healthy as I learn to love
others the way God already loves me.” Have you embraced this
lifestyle?
Truth-guided choices lead
to long-term emotional health, while feelings-guided choices lead to
long-term emotional problems.
This is because our emotional lives are broken;
they don’t function as fully reliable guides for our decisions.
In an unfallen world, we could fully trust them to reflect reality.
But in this fallen world, they are more like broken compasses.
Sometimes they are accurate, but at other times they are wildly
inaccurate. If we implicitly trust them to guide us, we will get
seriously and painfully lost. We need another, more reliable guide
for our choices--the guidance of God’s revealed truth.
This runs counter
to what our culture often tells us. We learn through a variety of
sources (MEDIA) that our feelings are reliable guides, and even that
we must express and follow our feelings in order to be emotionally
healthy (e.g., ADULTERY).
But the Bible
teaches this general relationship in a number of places. In Gen.
4:5-7, God warned Cain against following his anger feelings. This
choice led to the murder of his brother, and a lifetime of emotional
misery. God’s counsel was to choose against his feelings to
“do what is right”--which would result in a positive
change in his emotions. God tells us in Prov. 14:12 that the
course that feels right usually leads to death, and this is why we
need to lean against our inclinations and trust God’s truth for
guidance (Prov. 3:5,6). This is why Paul warns us that those
who allow their lusts (fallen desires) to guide their lives will be
deceived and corrupted (Eph. 4:22).
We cannot choose
how we feel, but we can choose how to respond to our feelings. And
choosing according to the truth rather than our feelings actually
reshapes our feelings over time.
If you
uncritically obey your feelings, you will injure yourself (and
others) emotionally, and you will become a slave to your deceitful
and corrupting desires (e.g., BITTERNESS; PORN).
But if you make
decisions based on the truth (to act in love) regardless of how you
feel, you (and others) will be spared much emotional injury, you will
reap emotional health--and your desire can actually be re-trained to
desire the way of the truth (ENGAGING, FORGIVING & AFFIRMING YOUR
SPOUSE vs. WITHDRAWING, PUNISHING & CRITICIZING). This is what
Ps. 37:4 means, and this is one of the most wonderful benefits
of walking in God’s truth over many years.
But as long as I
am a broken person living in this broken world, I must evaluate my
feelings in light of God’s Word. And I must have a category
for passing judgment against and disobeying wrong feelings, no matter
how strong and persistent they may be.
Which compass are
you trusting to navigate through life--your feelings or God’s
Word? This is one reason why it is so important to learn God’s
Word and consistently expose yourself to it. It forges truth
categories in your mind, and it reminds you of those categories so
you can make truth-guided decisions!
Conclusion
We’re going
to keep coming back to these same biblical assumptions and principles
in the coming weeks. We’ll see how they apply specifically to
dealing with anger, grief, depression, fear, anxiety, etc.
Footnotes