Tag: emotions

God, the Jilted Lover (James 4:4-10)

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

You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find. It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”

So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him make himself scarce. Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet. (The Message)

Quite apparent is the fact that the Apostle James was not trying to win friends in the world. However, he was trying to influence the people within the churches in his care. Specifically, he was confronting the proud and arrogant.

So, please understand, up front, that James was going after the haughty persons because it takes a hammer to break a hard heart. And so, his approach ought only to be emulated in the unique context of handling persons stuck in their own destructive hubris. Nevertheless, there is much instruction in these verses to help us all.

Throughout Holy Scripture, we find a marriage metaphor, likening the relationship of God to the people, much like a lover. God’s covenant relationship is at the heart of understanding the whole of Scripture. Whenever people stray from divine promises, God is offended and hurt. 

Yes, God feels pain. God is an emotional Being, which is why we have emotions as God’s image-bearers. One way to view the Bible is that it is a book about God, the jilted lover. The Lord set affection and love upon people, yet many people have spurned their Lover’s advance. And this situation pains God. 

When Adam and Eve, decided to find satisfaction outside of God, the Lord was hurt. After them, when people had children and raised them, they did so largely apart from the God who loved them:

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 6:5-6, NCV)

Yet, God was gracious. The Lord took a group of Noah’s descendants, Abraham’s family, and set a covenant of affection on them. God hoped to restore the world to right relationship through the Israelites. However, they too, came to set their affections on others. So, nearly half of the Old Testament is devoted to communicating the Lord’s hurt and disappointment. 

Like a jilted lover, God longed for Israel to remain faithful. For example, the prophet Hosea had an unfaithful wife, Gomer, and their relationship mirrored the relationship between God and Israel. Just as Hosea did not give up on his wife, even though she was brazenly unfaithful, so God looked at Israel as a spouse and could not bear to give her up.

Israel spurned their lover’s grace and kindness and actively sought other lovers, causing God anger and agony. God recounted the history of unfaithfulness:

“At every crossroad you built your platform and degraded your beauty by spreading your legs to all comers. And so, you encouraged even more promiscuity. You prostituted yourself with the Egyptians, your neighbors with the large sexual organs, and as you added to your seductions, you provoked me to anger…. 

Still not satisfied, you prostituted yourself to the Assyrians, but they were not enough for you either. So, you prostituted yourself with the Babylonians, the land of traders, but again you were not satisfied. How sick was your heart that you could do all these things, the deeds of a hardened prostitute?…

You are like an adulterous wife: you take in strangers instead of your husband. Ordinary prostitutes are given gifts, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers. From every direction you even bribed them to come to you for your sexual favors. As a prostitute, you were more perverse than other women. No one approached you for sexual favors, but you yourself gave gifts instead of receiving them.” (Ezekiel 16:25-34, CEB)

Despite Israel’s unfaithfulness, God extended grace to the beloved spouse:

“I am taking you back!
I rejected you for a while,
but with love and tenderness
    I will embrace you again.
For a while, I turned away
    in furious anger.
Now I will have mercy
    and love you forever!
I, your protector and Lord,
    make this promise.” (Isaiah 54:6-8, CEV)

The Old Testament ends with God still longing for return:

The Lord proclaims: “I care passionately about Zion; I burn with passion for her.” (Zechariah 8:2, CEB)

All of this theological awareness was in the heart of the Apostle James when he wrote his letter to the hard-hearted. He knew they were flirting with the world. He wanted them to stop and return to the God who longed to show them grace, if only they would humble themselves.

God yearns, passionately, for us to find our needs met, and enjoyment found, in the loving divine embrace. Spiritual adultery hurts God deeply, like it would any jilted lover. God awaits with loving patience to show grace and compassion to wayward people. 

Only the stance and attitude of humility can receive grace. Sinful pride prevents people from receiving God’s good gift. So, James rattled-off ten quick staccato commands to remain connected in a love relationship with God. They are resolutions to live by. 

Submit to God

Humble folk willingly place themselves under God’s authority because they are convinced God has their best interests at mind. One temptation when facing adversity is to entertain the belief that no one is going to look out for you except yourself. So, to avoid getting hurt too badly, we might become cynical, arrogant, and callous – self-protective strategies designed to keep the hurt away. This only creates hardness of heart. The alternative is faithful submission to God – knowing that God’s Spirit will protect and living with the conviction that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Resist the devil

Satan is a bully. The way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them. We face down the temptation by submitting to God and resisting the devil. Don’t be deceived into flipping it around by listening to Satan and avoiding submission to God.

Come near to God

Like a loving parent, the Lord longingly looks out the window waiting for prodigals to return. Coming to God is the first thing we ought to do. When my daughter was young her bike was stolen. So, we sat down together in the backyard and came to God in prayer. I barely finished praying when a police cruiser pulled up in the alley behind our house. The policeman rolled down his window and said, “Hey, are you missing a bike?”  We hopped in and he took us to where someone had ditched the bike. It was a tremendous lesson that when we come to God, God comes to us. I realize life does not always work that way, yet we can be assured that God listens, hears, and will respond.

Wash your hands

We cannot approach God with blood on our hands, but must come squarely facing our sin and disobedience.  We must deal with the wrong we have done without sweeping it under the rug. God wants us to admit our sin, receive grace, and deal with matters of restitution and reconciliation, without trying to save face when found out in a concern for “optics.”

Purify your heart

Whereas the previous resolution is mostly external, this one addresses the inner person, the heart. Not only do our actions need to be cleaned up through washing our hands, but our attitudes must also be purged of pollution. Our hearts cannot handle two masters; we are to be single-minded without mixed motives.

“The man who tries to walk two roads will split his pants.”

African proverb

The next four resolutions describe important emotional responses to sin:

“The Crying Giant,” Wilmington, Delaware

Grieve

Trying to move on without grieving and lamenting is called denial. Grief is not only an event; it is a process which takes time. Grieving is biblical. Sharing our stories with each other, giving testimony to God’s grace, and expressing ourselves is important. A loving God knows there cannot be healing apart from grief and lament.

Mourn

Blessed are those who mourn with an emotional response to the devastation of sin. Mourning sees sin in all its foulness and degradation. People who do not mourn become hard-hearted and need deep spiritual transformation. Jesus offers the remedy: By his wounds we are healed.

Wail

We are to more than cry – we need to wail.  Whereas mourning might be more personal, wailing has a much more public dimension to it. I believe the great tragedy in many modern churches is an inordinate focus on victory and triumphalism. The result: Far too many Christians cry alone. No one should ever have to cry by themselves. We must weep with those who weep. If there ever was an appropriate place for crying, it should be amongst fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Change

We cannot turn the clock back to some bygone idyllic era. We are to grasp the type of change which occurs in living for Jesus Christ and above sin – with no casual cavalier attitudes toward sin. I once had a conversation with a young woman about heaven and hell. When we began the discussion, she expressed a desire to be wherever the better party was going on. By the time we finished our conversation she was grieving and crying. I never knew what became of her. But once she got just a glimpse of the gravity of sin, it undid her.

Be humble

Humility sums up all these resolutions. The paradox is that through grieving, mourning, and wailing we become joyful and satisfied; through suffering there is glory; becoming last is to become first; entering the narrow gate leads to the broad open space of God’s eternal life.

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo. Forgive what our lips tremble to name, what our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment. Set us free from a past that we cannot change; open to us a future in which we can be changed; and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image, through Jesus Christ, the light of the world. Amen

Facing Our Sadness (Psalm 42)

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

As a deer longs for a stream of cool water,
    so I long for you, O God.
I thirst for you, the living God.
    When can I go and worship in your presence?
Day and night I cry,
    and tears are my only food;
all the time my enemies ask me,
    “Where is your God?”

My heart breaks when I remember the past,
    when I went with the crowds to the house of God
    and led them as they walked along,
    a happy crowd, singing and shouting praise to God.
Why am I so sad?
    Why am I so troubled?
I will put my hope in God,
    and once again I will praise him,
    my savior and my God.

Here in exile my heart is breaking,
    and so I turn my thoughts to him.
He has sent waves of sorrow over my soul;
    chaos roars at me like a flood,
    like waterfalls thundering down to the Jordan
    from Mount Hermon and Mount Mizar.
May the Lord show his constant love during the day,
    so that I may have a song at night,
    a prayer to the God of my life.

To God, my defender, I say,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go on suffering
    from the cruelty of my enemies?”
I am crushed by their insults,
    as they keep on asking me,
    “Where is your God?”

Why am I so sad?
    Why am I so troubled?
I will put my hope in God,
    and once again I will praise him,
    my savior and my God. (Good News Translation)

Sadness. Every human on planet earth knows the feeling. Since we are emotional creatures, profound sadness – even to the point of depression and/or despondency – will happen.

Despite the universal nature of discouragement and tears, many Christians buck the sadness. Far too many believers focus so exclusively on victory in Jesus through his resurrection, ascension, and glorification that they use religion as their denial when unwanted emotions like sadness come banging at the doorstep of their soul.

So, I most emphatically say: Depression is not sin. To be discouraged is not the Enemy. Experiencing sadness is neither wrong nor selfish. Quite the opposite, in fact.

It is necessary to sit with our emotions and feel the breadth and depth of them. Both our spiritual and emotional health come through an awareness and robust engagement with our feelings. To refuse to feel is to put the stiff arm to God.

The psalmist does anything but deny his feelings. He brings them before the Lord and spreads them out before the Divine. Why am I discouraged? Why am I restless? Why the sadness? Could it be that God has forgotten me? Where is the Lord? Is God angry with me? Are my troubles the result of divine wrath?

To blandly say we have never uttered or thought such questions is a telltale sign of denial. The bottom line for many folks is that they do not want to feel these emotions because it complicates their lives. Besides, discouragement and sadness hurt. “Why feel,” we reason, “when it only brings pain?”

Oh my, the avoidance of pain. And there is no pain quite like emotional and spiritual pain. Much like an open wound which needs a liberal application of painful peroxide, our spiritual wounds must sting with the salve of emotional feeling. Healing is neither cheap, easy, nor painless. It typically hurts like hell.

The psalmist’s own pain revolved around feelings of alienation from God, being cut off from fellow worshipers, and harassed by others around him. Understandably, he experienced despondency and loneliness. The psalmist wondered if anyone, including God, even cared what he was going through. In other words, he is desperate for God to show up.

Here’s a simple observation about this psalm: The psalmist did not get any answers to the several questions he posed. He even repeated them, to no avail. The only form of comfort the psalmist received was to remember what God had done in the past. Somehow, someway, this will help with the difficulties of the present.

There are times in life when we must recall what we know about God, ourselves, and others. If the Lord has delivered in the past, God can do it again. If others helped before, perhaps they will be present in the here and now. And just maybe, even likely, you and I will discover a resilient spirit within. We already possess everything we need to not only survive but to grow and thrive in life.

Hope arises from holding the big picture of the past, present, and future together at the same time. When present circumstances are difficult, and it appears we are about to be swallowed up into the now, we must hold the past and future along with it, in careful tension. Then, we shall find the enablement to keep going.

Trust in the future, and a confident expectation of hope is born from the trustworthiness of the past. A prayerful song in our heart will carry us through till our hope is realized.

Almighty and merciful God, you heal the broken-hearted, and turn the sadness of the sorrowful to joy. Let your fatherly goodness be upon all whom you have made. Remember in pity all those who are this day destitute, homeless, elderly, infirm, or forgotten. Bless the multitude of your poor. Lift up those who are cast down.

Mightily befriend innocent sufferers and sanctify to them the endurance of their wrongs. Cheer with hope all who are discouraged and downcast, and by your heavenly grace preserve from falling those whose poverty tempts them to sin. Though they are troubled on every side, suffer them not to be distressed; though they are perplexed, save them from despair. Grant this, O Lord, for the love of him who for our sakes became poor, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ.

Dealing with Hate (Genesis 37:5-11)

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

One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever. “Listen to this dream,” he said. “We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine!”

His brothers responded, “So you think you will be our king, do you? Do you actually think you will reign over us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them.

Soon Joseph had another dream, and again he told his brothers about it. “Listen, I have had another dream,” he said. “The sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed low before me!”

This time he told the dream to his father as well as to his brothers, but his father scolded him. “What kind of dream is that?” he asked. “Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow to the ground before you?” But while his brothers were jealous of Joseph, his father wondered what the dreams meant. (New Living Translation)

We need to talk about hate, and it’s wicked stepsisters jealousy and disrespect.

In the ancient world, the oldest son was usually the one favored by parents. The eldest child would typically grow up to lead the family and inherit the largest share of the family resources. Joseph and Benjamin were two sons born to Jacob and Jacob’s favored wife, Rachel (Genesis 30:22-24). They were the youngest of Jacob’s twelve sons.

Jacob loved Joseph more than any other of his children (Genesis 37:3). To make things even more complicated, Jacob made his affection for the seventeen-year-old Joseph very public by giving Joseph a special long multi-colored robe. Not surprisingly, the other brothers hated him. 

“Joseph’s Dreams” by Susan Govatos

From the brothers’ perspective, Joseph added insult to injury by sharing a dream of his, implying that all of them would one day bow down to him. Dreams were significant in the ancient world; they were understood to be one way the divine realm could communicate with humans. But all this only made Joseph’s brothers hate him more than they already did.

Unfortunately, as the story unfolds further into Genesis, Joseph’s brothers take their sibling rivalry to a diabolical level. And it’s all fueled by their hatred and jealousy.

We all can relate to feelings of hatred and jealousy toward another. They can overwhelm us. So, what do we do when these big emotions come upon us?

  1. Consider your thoughts. If you find that you’ve been engaging in an all-or-nothing thought or a generalization, consider what a more balanced thought might be. Instead of saying, “He’s a total jerk,” consider instead, “I don’t like what he did to me” as an alternative. This approach typically makes the difference between health and sickness. A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy is like cancer in the bones. (Proverbs 14:30, NLT)
  2. Pause for a moment and be curious about whether what you’re telling yourself about the other person or group is accurate. Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil spirits, and they were all healed. The high priest and his officials, who were Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. (Acts 5:15-18, NLT)
  3. Lead with empathy and compassion if you feel hatred toward a person or group. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Compassion is engaging in an act of kindness. If you come upon your enemy’s ox or donkey that has strayed away, take it back to its owner. If you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has collapsed under its load, do not walk by. Instead, stop and help. (Exodus 23:4-5, NLT) “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.” (Luke 6:27-28, NLT)
  4. Talk to God instead of bottling up your feelings. Many people believe that ignoring their emotions will make them disappear, but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. Rather than going away, unaddressed emotions build up and intensify over time. Praying to the Lord and crying out to God are therapeutic. Rescue me from the mud; don’t let me sink any deeper! Save me from those who hate me, and pull me from these deep waters. (Psalm 69:14, NLT)
  5. Receive God’s love and kindness. We cannot give that which we have not first received. Once we, too, were foolish and disobedient. We were misled and became slaves to many lusts and pleasures. Our lives were full of evil and envy, and we hated each other. But when God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:3-5, NLT)

If we spend a disproportionate amount of time hating someone in our heart, have difficulty focusing on other things because of jealousy, or consider disrespecting another to the point of violence, then we need help; we cannot handle this alone.

Seeking help to resolve hatred doesn’t mean that there’s mental illness going on. Everyone experiences hatred at some point in their lives. Allowing God and others to help is a rational, responsible, and courageous act.

Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed: kindle, we pray, in the hearts of all, the true love of peace and guide us with your pure and peaceable wisdom, so that your kingdom may go forward on this earth, filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Communicate with Clarity and Care (Genesis 35:1-4)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
Jacob burying the false gods under the oak by Shechem, by Sébastien Bourdon (1616-1671)

Then God said to Jacob, “Go to Bethel and live there. Make an altar there. I am the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”

So Jacob said to his family and those who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods which you have, wash yourselves until you are ritually clean, and change your clothes. Then let’s go to Bethel. I will make an altar there to God, who answered me when I was troubled and who has been with me wherever I’ve gone.” So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods that they had in their possession as well as the earrings that they had on. Jacob buried these things under the oak tree near Shechem. (God’s Word Translation)

Christianity has existed for 2,000 years; Judaism for 4,000 years or more. That’s a long time. On the one hand, this is a tremendous legacy of faith, grounded in several millennia of solid religious tradition. And on the other hand, something existing for so long is bound to accumulate some barnacles that get encrusted on the faith.

And if those barnacles are there for too long, it becomes assumed that they’re just part of the ship of faith. But they’re not; they need to be removed so we can see the real thing and move through life unencumbered and not dragged by extraneous stuff.

The familiar, over time, is taken for granted. And when that happens, we lose sight of what is most important, of what is most needed.

God helped Jacob – the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham – to reconnect with a seminal experience from earlier in his life. That experience was a vison of God, and an assurance that God was with Jacob. He was not alone.

But, years later, after accumulating two wives, twelve sons, and many flocks of sheep and other animals, it was time to move and make a home and an altar elsewhere. Instead of taking the Lord for granted, and forgetting the difficulties of the past, God intervened and called the whole crew to go and live in another place.

The communication from God brought Jacob to a spiritual place of realizing what had happened over the years; slowly and perhaps imperceptibly, the barnacles of idolatry had become encrusted amongst his family. And they were obstacles which needed to be jettisoned before they could move on.

Jacob needed to hear from God. Jacob’s family needed to hear from him. And that communication had to be a helpful way of scraping the barnacles off from decades of misplaced living.

Our world today is marked by unfeeling meanness to strangers, a profound lack of empathy, respect, and basic human kindness toward one another. Individuals, groups, communities, and entire nations don’t know how to talk to each other in a way that is helpful and life-giving.

We need a process which helps us have a way of being with others that is compassionate. It is imperative that we have communication that guides us in both expressing ourselves and listening to others. And that process must focus on what we are observing, feeling, and needing.

It is essential that humanity creates deeper personal relationships and maintains them. If not, we will be overcome by the barnacles of suspicion, hate, distrust of others, as well as distance from God.

Unless we are with each other in helpful ways, we will devolve into judgmental and critical speech directed toward others or even ourselves. Violent words are the main obstacle to having compassion on others.

Comparisons and classifications of people, denial of responsibility for words and behaviors, and making demands, leads to estranged relationships. Instead, we can do better. We can be with one another and talk to each other by communicating observations, feelings, needs, and requests.

Observation

  • Observe, rather than evaluate. Whenever we observe something, and then quickly evaluate it, the other person will tend to hear criticism and resist what we are saying.
  • Be specific, not general. It’s helpful to make a specific observation instead of a general one. For example, God was specific about what Jacob was to do. And Jacob was quite specific about the situation of idolatry and what to do about it before the family could move to Bethel.

Feeling

  • Acknowledge and express your emotion. Clearly and specifically identify and name your emotions because this is the way we connect more easily with others. Jacob told his family of feeling troubled in the past and that God helped him deal with it.
  • Be vulnerable. Expressing our feelings can help resolve conflicts. The old adage is true: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Need

  • What do you need? Take responsibility for your feelings. Connect your feeling with your need. Jacob was devoted to God because his emotions were tethered with how God had met his needs throughout his life.
  • Others do not cause our feelings, and they are not responsible for our emotions. Jacob’s family did exactly what Jacob told them to do – and did not buck him or resist him – mainly because he let them know how he was feeling, and why he was telling them to rid themselves of idols and move on with him to Bethel.
  • Listen to yourself. Judgments of others are projections of our own unmet needs; and conversely, being kind to ourselves, listening to our thoughts, and paying attention to how we carry stress in our bodies, allows us to be helpful to others and present to them in whatever they are going through.
  • We are not responsible for other people’s feelings. We can never meet our own needs by trying to make others feel guilt or shame.

Request

  • Ask for what you need and want. We honor ourselves by making requests in clear, positive, and concrete language of what we really need. The clearer we are about what we want, the more likely it is that we’ll get it.
  • The message we send is not always the message which is received by another. Be clear about the response you want so that there is no confusion about what we truly need.

The objective of communication is not to change people and their behavior in order to get our way. Rather, it is to establish relationships based on honesty and empathy that will eventually fulfill everyone’s needs.

There is a need to express honestly and clearly our observations, feelings, needs, and requests, as well as receive another’s communication with focused attention and empathy.

So then, how we talk to and about God, and how we talk to ourselves, becomes a template for how we talk to others. A lack of clear communication is a surefire way of allowing the barnacles of displeasure and disappointment to attach to our souls.

However, clear communication is life-giving and even lifesaving. It’s worth putting significant effort into it.

Blessed Lord, in your infinite wisdom, you created us with the gift of communication. May we use this gift to foster love, understanding, and unity amongst ourselves and with you.

Guide our hearts to speak words of kindness and encouragement. May our tongues be instruments of love, grace and compassion to those around us.

Open our ears, so that we may truly listen and understand the needs and desires of our fellow humanity. Grant us the patience to hear their stories and the wisdom to respond with love and empathy.

Enlighten our minds to be clear and thoughtful in our affect and speech. As we share our thoughts and ideas, may we be ever mindful of your presence, seeking your holy and good will in all we say and do.

Fill our conversations with honesty and vulnerability. May we find the strength and courage to speak our truth while always remaining respectful and considerate of the feelings of others.

Bind us together in unity and love through our shared communication. May our words build bridges and forge bonds that reflect your divine love and mercy. Amen.