All the Feels: Take Charge of Your Feelings (Instead of the Other Way Around)Sample

All the Feels  

I’m a big feeler—the word big being a laughable understatement. If feelings were weight lifters, mine would be a four-hundred-pound guy named Sven, with legs the size of tree trunks, who can pull eighteen-wheelers across parking lots with chains clenched in his teeth. It took me half a million years to figure out where all my deep feelings fit into my Christian walk. To realize that our faith is exactly the place—the best place—to process all our feelings. To rejoice in the fact that not only did God give us our emotions as precious gifts, but He also delights in who we are and how we feel—and he wants to share all those feelings with us.

If you feel bored with faith, stiff or distant when you pray; if you secretly feel that your faith doesn’t apply to your “real life”; if you wonder if your struggles with depression or anxiety are beyond God’s reach, perhaps you have never learned how to bring your true feelings to God. 

The Bible is a richly emotional book. In its pages you will find men and women grappling with every emotion you and I experience: joy, hurt, anger, love, anxiety, fear, envy, bitterness, confusion, and countless more. This tells us so much about God. He is a deeply emotional being Himself, and He understands the depth and breadth of our feelings. 

Psalm 56:8 tells us that He counts our tears: 

You keep track of all my sorrows. 

You have collected all my tears in your bottle. 

You have recorded each one in your book. (nlt)

And He gives us joy:

Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. 

Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” (Psalm 126:2, niv)

I invite you to throw open the doors of your heart, bringing God to your emotions and your emotions to God―the one who invented feelings and who always welcomes yours.

If it matters to you, it matters to Him. He longs to share your joys, guide your heart, and—most wondrous of gifts—carry your sorrows. 

He has given you countless tools in Scripture to help you experience your emotions in ways that honor Him and are healthy for you. In the coming days, we will explore ways God can guide us in taking charge of our emotions, how His Word can support us through seasons of depression and anxiety, and how our emotions can connect us emotionally to God and others. Perhaps, like me, you feel excited about the journey; nervous about diving deeper; giddy, intimidated, understood, eager, hopeful . . . well, you know. All the feels.