Five Days to a Healthier Spiritual LifeSample

Process Your Emotions

Do you ever try to avoid your emotions?

Most of us aren’t sure what to do with all we feel, so we avoid sitting still among the trees of our life. We distract ourselves to escape being alone because we are terrified of, ashamed, or dis- appointed by who we might have to face when we stop moving: ourselves.

We are complex, embodied creatures, and emotions are tricky business. What we feel and think are gifts from God to know Him, ourselves, and others rightly. Learning how to process emotions is an essential part of Christian maturity; however, they don’t come with an instruction manual in the glove box of our souls. If left unprocessed, emotions reinforce disordered desires and distort interpretations of our own experience. Surrendering and discipling how we handle our emotions enables us to move through them toward productive action in life with God.

God is big enough to handle you being in process. He’s big enough for you to make a mess and need help. He’s big enough to love you when you don’t love yourself.

We just need to show up with all our baggage and birthday candles, trusting Him to deal with us rightly in every circumstance because He’s a good father who gives Himself (Luke 11:1–13), and all things work together for our good (Rom. 8).

I’m not saying we shouldn’t seek to grow more sanctified in our emotional life. Indeed, we want to become more godly in all areas of our life, including our emotions.

We don’t want to spend our days utterly consumed with jealousy, rivalry, contempt, or malice, for example. I am saying that you won’t get very far down the path of Christian maturity in your emotional life if you don’t bring every emotion to Him—the ones you’re comfortable with admitting and the ones you’re not.

You’ve got to get honest and disciplined with God here, regularly offering up your emotions to Him—every single one of them—trusting Him to help you and change you. We must all do this if we’re serious about growing as Christians.