Thank you for posting this Debbie!!
Not All Emotions Are Good (From “Raising Godly Tomatoes”)
It is not wrong to have emotions, but unbridled emotions are dangerous and potentially devastating. Adults who feel righteous indignation upon seeing the innocent suffer, or children who grieve the loss of a grandparent, act properly and nobly. But not all emotions, displayed freely, are good. Both the adult who loses his temper when frustrated, and the child who throws a fit to get his way, are equally reprehensible. Emotions are attributes of God Himself, engendered in us when He “created man in His own image”. The challenge is not to eliminate emotions, but to manage them in ways pleasing to God and in accord with His image.
Because God is gracious, He helps us in this task of becoming like Him, by revealing to us in His word, when we are to feel certain emotions and to what extent. We are to “hate” evil, for example. We are to “be miserable and mourn and weep” over our own sins. We are to “rejoice” in Him. We are to “love” our neighbor. And so on. In addition to His direct instructions, God offers His example, so that we might imitate Him. Thus, when Exodus tells us that God is “slow to anger,” we too must be slow to anger. When the Psalms describe Him as compassionate and longsuffering, we are to seek to be the same.
Jesus is, of course, our supreme example. His emotional repertoire was vast and we are given many examples thereof. Jesus was “consumed with zeal” when He saw God’s house being misused. He “felt compassion” for the lost and taught them, and for the sick and healed them. He “wept” when His dear friend Lazarus died. His soul was “deeply grieved” when He prayed in the Garden. And ultimately, Jesus demonstrated “love”, beyond compare, by laying down His very life for our sakes. In all that He did, He set an example for us to follow and gave us the power to do so.
Along with the biblical descriptions of wisely managed emotions, the Bible also gives us many examples of mismanaged and unrestrained emotions, beginning with Cain who murdered his own brother in anger, to Moses who lost his temper and struck the rock, to the malice of the Jewish leaders who sought to put the Son of God to death. Never are these displays excused because the perpetrators did not have the ability to control their tempers. Apparently God felt they did. In the next few chapters I am going to discuss emotions as they relate to parenting small children and how, in practical ways, we can help our children become masters of their own spirits and hence live the rest of their lives free from the bonds of emotional slavery.
Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth”
- Exodus 34:6
