Tag: emotional pain

Psalm 142 – The Cry of Emotional Pain

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

crying face looking up

I cry out loud for help from the Lord.
I beg out loud for mercy from the Lord.
I pour out my concerns before God;
I announce my distress to him.
When my spirit is weak inside me, you still know my way.
But they’ve hidden a trap for me in the path I’m taking.
Look right beside me: See?
No one pays attention to me.
There’s no escape for me.
No one cares about my life.

I cry to you, Lord, for help.
“You are my refuge,” I say.
“You are all I have in the land of the living.”
Pay close attention to my shouting,
because I’ve been brought down so low!
Deliver me from my oppressors
because they’re stronger than me.
Get me out of this prison
so I can give thanks to your name.
Then the righteous will gather all around me
because of your good deeds to me. (CEB)

One of the reasons I love the psalms so dearly is that they are raw and real. There is no pretense with the psalmist. He opens his mind and heart and lets the genuine feelings of his life pour out in an offering to the God who bends his ear and pays attention to the humble and contrite. The proud and arrogant will forever be flummoxed by the psalms, not understanding why they are even in the canon of Scripture.

Yet, here they are, in Holy Scripture for all to experience. Whereas the piously insincere are continually putting up a false front of godliness and keeping up appearances of superior spirituality, here we have authentic religion right here in front of our faces. To me, the psalms liberate me from the shackles of trying to be someone I am not and enable me to connect with a God who encourages me in my wondering, my pain, my situations – and who is perfectly at home with crying aloud and shouting prayers to heaven.

Those who oppress others, I believe, are easy to spot: the only questions they ask are rhetorical to just make a point and are not really asking a question; they make faulty assumptions, and, so, think nothing of leveling false accusations; and, they have no curiosity to listen or learn – just a desire to make their own message known.

If such oppressors are the ones in power, then, it feels like being in prison with no ability to leverage a release. However, there is One who is always on the lookout for the oppressed and the needy who are raising their voices to heaven.

When no one else will listen because they are too smug in their delusions of rightness and strength, God hears and will advocate on behalf of those experiencing injustice and maltreatment.

Since God takes a posture of listening to those in need of mercy, this is precisely the disposition we are to adopt as people created in God’s image. The proud, convinced of their superiority, either cannot or will not see those languishing underneath power structures. For there is no space in the hearts of the proud to accommodate those who cry out on behalf of justice. The only recourse for the oppressed is God – and God will act with equity and with integrity.

It is not the oppressed who need our pity; it is the ungodly. The poor and the needy would like to show empathy – but that would take knowing another, which the oppressor has no stomach for. Systems of oppression keep people at a distance and turn a blind eye to the genuine screams of those under their boot.

The weak, the distressed, and the spiritually tired people on this fallen planet of ours very much have an appeal to the God who knows them and their situations. Although cries for deliverance may not happen immediately, we can be assured that divine help is forthcoming.

cave

This psalm was crafted by David in a cave before he was king. David was on the run from King Saul, who was trying to take his life. David was hiding and just trying to stay alive. There was nothing in David’s life in which he deserved such treatment. It was sheer jealousy on Saul’s end of things that caused him to give his soul over to oppressive pride. And David was the brunt of that oppression.

We know the end of the story. Saul is eventually killed in battle and David is exalted as the new king. Yet, here, in today’s psalm, we have the genuine cry of a desperate man who longed for the justice of God. One of the reasons David was a person after God’s own heart is that he exhibited humility and remained connected to God without succumbing to the bitterness of his situation. I would suggest strongly that David was able to keep his life free from pride because he regularly liberated his spirit through real and raw expressions of his emotions and experiences to God.

Spiritual confidence cannot be ginned-up through pretending that all is well, and everything is okay. Rather, spiritual courage is forged in the most awful of circumstances through real expressions of need and loud cries of emotional pain to the God who truly hears it all. Anyone who tells you different is flimsily trying to maintain their puny sense of delusional power. God sees you in the dark place and he hears your cry for mercy.

Lord Jesus Christ, by your patience in suffering you made my earthly pain sacred and gave me the example of humility. Be near to me in my time of weakness and pain; sustain me by your grace so that my strength and courage may not fail. Heal me according to your will. Loving Jesus, as you cried out on the cross, I cry out to you in my desperation. Do not forsake me. Grant me relief and preserve me in your perfect peace. Amen.

Genesis 6:5-22 – The God of Emotion

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

flood of tears

The Lord saw that the human beings on the earth were very wicked and that everything they thought about was evil. He was sorry he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So, the Lord said, “I will destroy all human beings that I made on the earth. And I will destroy every animal and everything that crawls on the earth and the birds of the air, because I am sorry that I made them.” But Noah pleased the Lord. 

This is the family history of Noah. Noah was a good man, the most innocent man of his time, and he walked with God. He had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 

People on earth did what God said was evil, and violence was everywhere. When God saw that everyone on the earth did only evil, he said to Noah, “Because people have made the earth full of violence, I will destroy all of them from the earth. Build a boat of cypress wood for yourself. Make rooms in it and cover it inside and outside with tar. This is how big I want you to build the boat: four hundred fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. Make an opening around the top of the boat that is eighteen inches high from the edge of the roof down. Put a door in the side of the boat. Make an upper, middle, and lower deck in it. I will bring a flood of water on the earth to destroy all living things that live under the sky, including everything that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will die. But I will make an agreement with you—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives will all go into the boat. Also, you must bring into the boat two of every living thing, male and female. Keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, animal, and crawling thing will come to you to be kept alive. Also gather some of every kind of food and store it on the boat as food for you and the animals.” 

Noah did everything that God commanded him. (NCV) 

When I was a kid, the picture of God I had in my little head was of a white-bearded old guy sitting in the clouds looking bored and paying little attention to the humans below. Maybe, once-in-a-while, he would take his divine BB gun and shoot people in the backside, just for some fun. Although I have considerably moved on from that type of theological vision, it seems to be a common caricature of God that he is often indifferent – and even more so that God lacks emotions (except maybe anger). 

The Holy Bible says a lot about humanity. It says even more about God. In fact, Scripture is primarily about revealing who God is – the Lord’s character, attributes – and, yes, emotions. Much like my childhood misunderstandings of God, I am not sure why so many people tend to view God as lacking in feeling and emotion. Maybe the Enlightenment with its focus on reason, logic, and classification simply drained all emotion from God. It could be that contemporary humans project on God their own stoicism toward emotions. Perhaps we see emotions as unreliable and fickle, characteristics that God would not possess – and, so, we jettison any thought of God as feeling deeply about things. Whatever the reason, we will fail to know God as God unless we come to grips with a verse like this:  

“The Lord saw that the human beings on the earth were very wicked and that everything they thought about was evil. He was sorry he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.” (Genesis 6:6, emphasis mine) 

Broken Heart

Rather than our emotional human nature being a result of the Fall, it is instead a part of our original design of being in Paradise with God. As God’s image-bearers, we carry the mark of God with feeling deeply about things, just like our Creator. In those times when sadness seems as if it might swallow us whole, we just may be closer to God in that moment than any other. God has a heart, and that heart has been hurt and broken more times than we could ever imagine. God’s emotions moved him to action. God’s sorrow led to destroying injustice. 

The thoughts, attitudes, and actions of violent and unfeeling people very much trouble God – to the point of being heartsick. It is our emotional makeup which connects us and bonds us with the divine. The inability to feel is the ultimate disconnect from God. 

Jesus also felt deeply about a great many things – so much so that he died from a broken heart. Recall that in the seminal Sermon on the Mount Christ’s first words to the large gathering of people were: 

“Blessed are those who mourn.” (Matthew 5:4)  

We underestimate the importance and the power of emotions to our peril. Biblical writers often purposefully contrast differing persons in their stories. In today’s Old Testament lesson, that contrast is most vivid between God and wicked humanity. Humanity had gotten to a point where they felt nothing. The violent behavior was a direct result of their emotional selves split-off from the rest of them. People were bifurcated, their humanity chopped as if a meat cleaver separated their feelings from themselves. Whenever we observe belligerent bullying, hate speech, meanness, and oppression – there you find a paucity of emotions. It is not the presence of feelings that brings about wickedness; it is the lack of emotional awareness and the absence of feelings which is the highway to a watery grave. 

We are in the “Last Days,” that is, the time before the final event in the Christian tradition’s understanding of history. Christ will return to judge the living and the dead. The righteous will enjoy God’s presence forever; the wicked, not really. These days are too often characterized by the kinds of behavior which lack the emotional depth of godly love and a heart of compassion: 

“There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” (2 Timothy 3:1-4, NIV) 

For me, learning to name my emotions and to observe where I carry those emotions in my body has been most helpful in connecting with my feelings – and connecting with my God. And, I must add, such an emotional awareness and kinship with feelings has brought personal wellness and compassionate ministry to others. 

So, receive this blessing today: 

The eyes of Jesus gaze upon you, stirring his heart with compassion. 

The gaze of Christ sees your heart, your joy and sorrow. 

The gaze of Christ sees your future, filled with the healing of emotions expressed. 

The eyes of Jesus gaze upon you, filling his heart with adoration. Amen. 

Psalm 31:9-16 – Lord, Have Mercy

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
woman sitting on wooden planks
Photo by Keenan Constance on Pexels.com

Lord, have mercy, because I am in misery.
    My eyes are weak from so much crying,
    and my whole being is tired from grief.
My life is ending in sadness,
    and my years are spent in crying.
My troubles are using up my strength,
    and my bones are getting weaker.
Because of all my troubles, my enemies hate me,
    and even my neighbors look down on me.
When my friends see me,
    they are afraid and run.
I am like a piece of a broken pot.
    I am forgotten as if I were dead.
I have heard many insults.
    Terror is all around me.
They make plans against me
    and want to kill me. 

Lord, I trust you.
    I have said, “You are my God.”
My life is in your hands.
    Save me from my enemies
    and from those who are chasing me.
Show your kindness to me, your servant.
    Save me because of your love. (NCV) 

None of us signed-up for suffering.  Yet, not a one of us can avoid it.  Pain comes in all kinds of forms – and perhaps the worst kind of wound is the one inflicted from others looking down at you when you’re already experiencing trouble and damaged emotions.  Whether it is a group of people, such as Asians facing ridicule and anger because of COVID-19, or COVID-19 patients themselves who sometimes become a pariah, the physical effects of pain can oftentimes be secondary to the primary hurt experienced within the spirit. 

David of old knew first-hand about suffering through hard circumstances.  There were times when he felt completely overwhelmed by wicked people trying to take his life.  If we could put ourselves in David’s sandals, we can understand why he was worn-out to the point of not sleeping, not eating well, even with a hint of paranoia.  David entrusted himself to God, and truly believed he was in the Lord’s hands – and that fact was his go-to truth. 

Jesus uttered his last words on the cruel cross from this very psalm: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).  The cross was obviously a place of extreme bodily pain.  That pain, however, was dwarfed by the great spiritual pain of holding the entire world’s hurts, their curse of separation.  The stress of both body and soul must have been crushing for Jesus.  Yet, there was a strength of assurance smack in the middle of that pain – the confidence of knowing he was in good hands, just like David’s confidence a millennium before. 

There are times when we all struggle with why afflictions happen to us, whatever form they might take in us.  It is in such times of being forgotten by others that we are most remembered by God; it is in the situations of trouble that God is the expert in deliverance; it is when people revile us, say terrible things about us, and talk behind our backs that God comes alongside and whispers his grace and steadfast love to us.  It is when life is downright hard that we see a soft-hearted God standing to help us and hold us. 

While we are feeling our suffering, God is carefully crafting within us resilience through the rejection, empathy in our loneliness, purpose because of the trauma, forgiveness out of the shame, courage from having been failed, and self-awareness in the wake of emotional devastation. 

The biblical psalms are the consummate place to run to when we are most in need.  They provide the means to lift heartfelt prayers when our own words fail us.  The psalms give us structure and meaning when the world around us makes no sense.  The psalms do not always give us answers to our most vexing questions; they do, however, point us to the God who is attentive to the least, the lost, and the lonely.   

Lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy.  Lord, have mercy on us and grant us your peace.  Amen. 

Click It Is Well with My Soul sung by Anthem Lights and be reminded that we neither bear our sufferings alone, nor needlessly.