God and Emotions
Montreal/Cornwall
October 4, 2003
God is emotional, often passionate, but rarely placid.
This statement is quite contrary to the image that most have of God. Traditionally, God’s people have thought of God as stable, unchanging, grand, majestic, and attentive. All of these adjectives are true of God, without question. However, there is another side to God that we don’t often think about, yet which informs us about what needs to be another side of ourselves, too. You see, we are made in God’s image, and we seek to reflect him in all ways we are like him. Sometimes, we pick various portions of Him that we like, and try to emulate those. But, there are many other aspects of Him that we need to understand and use, too. For some of us, we might need to better reflect the unchanging, dignified, attentive, and stable parts of God. For others of us, there may be other areas of his personality that can alter us to make us just a little bit more like him, and which we might be able to use to enrich our lives and our service toward Him and others.
I grew up in a household that was not very emotional. As part of the English background of the family, there was a great reserve about emotions and a certain fear of them, I believe, as I analyze things now. There was not anger very often, but neither was there expression of affection. There was no whooping and hollering in watching ‘Hockey Night in Canada’, but a very subdued, ‘that’s good’. Somehow, I came with the loudness, over the years, that goes a bit beyond that, but it wasn’t something encouraged. I remember being encouraged to be ‘nice’ many times, but what is ‘nice’? Have you ever wondered, ‘what is nice?’ I, honestly, don’t know. I believe it’s rather ‘vanilla’- nothing wrong with vanilla, but strawberry is nice, and so are chocolate, and pistachio, bubblegum, and caramel, too. I remember being taught to ‘not cry in public’. I wonder ‘why?’ Why are we not to cry in public? Why are we to control our emotions in such a way? If something is sad, why do we need to be embarrassed to show that we feel the sadness deeply?
Of course, my background and community were rooted in Methodism, which tended, at least, to exert a lot of repressive messages about emotions. Of course, it is rooted, too, in Victorianism- my grandparents all came from Victorian times and the impact of that was, at least, far greater than we sometimes credit it.
However, God is neither a Methodist (in the broadest sense of the meaning of that word) nor a Victorian. God is not English, either. I figured these things out eventually, and have gone looking for the real God, and the real God is much more than defined behaviour, proper conduct, and traditional community approaches. He shows us far more of him than those terms could possibly begin to express. He is more- oh, so much more- than most of us begin to imagine. This means, there is much more of him for us to bring into our lives, our characters, and our personalities, that will expand us and enrich us, and enable us to more fully represent Him in the world in which He has sent us on mission.
Do you know that God is jealous? Imagine that. We’re told not to act jealous. “Are you jealous?” is thrown out as a negative thing today. If a woman says to a man, “Are you jealous?” he’s supposed to plead, somehow, that he’s not, rather than saying, ‘Yes, I am jealous for you,’ for instance. God is jealous and doesn’t hide it.
Exod. 20.5- he does not want to share his affection with anyone else. I’m aware of a situation, many miles from here that involves a young married couple- early to mid-30s. The lady, involved, still throws herself at other men when they go to parties. She will sit on laps and flirt and won’t respond to her husband when he asks her not to do that. He is jealous, and rightly so, and as a product of divorce would rather not have to go through that and have their son suffer as he suffered. But she believes his jealousy is silly. Maybe she IS completely devoted to him, and she seems to be. However, there are, obviously, some matters of behaviour that she wasn’t taught about how behaviour must change once you’ve ‘tied the knot’. Some things end at that time. Jealousy is a wonderful emotion that allows us to guard ourselves and those we love; it causes us to look out for those we cherish. It can become too sensitive, sometimes, I’m sure, but better that than being too casual and careless, with results that hurt immensely. I know that jealousy is a ‘big deal’ at camp or in the schoolyards as young ‘love’ blossoms and young boys and girls are anxious about who is looking at whom; this can be silly, but is the beginning of learning how to better use this emotion. God is jealous about affection toward Him. He will not share that with another- this is why there is only room, in God’s universe, for one God, and that would be Him! There is only room, in God’s universe, for his people to worship one God, and that would be Him. There is no room for us to worship him, and then to worship a bit of other gods, including ourselves, our spouses, our children, our cars, our jobs, or any of the multitude of other gods we can so easily bow before. Do you guard your affections toward God as carefully as he guards his toward you? Do you begin to internalize God’s jealousy about your affections? When you come before God, privately or publicly, are you careful to show only affection toward and about Him that reflects a certain measure of jealousy on your part? Jealousy is a wonderful emotion, not to be ashamed of or relegated to some closet of ancient values. Jealousy is a ‘guarding emotion’ that God has and that we need to develop.
Let me add that as we better reflect God, we better do what He tells us to do in Rom.12.1, which tells us to be living sacrifices. By using the emotion of jealousy, we actually worship God, because we more fully live as we were created to do. I can see it applying in our times here, in that we can deeply want God to know how much we care for him, but I see it as applying, too, in our day-to-day affairs, where we guard ourselves and others in a way that glorifies God.
Do you know that God gets angry? This is an emotion that many of us have been taught to be very careful of, and this is good teaching, overall. We can see the destructiveness of anger every day as we hear of murders- this week, we heard of the conviction of a man who killed his 6 children because he was angry with his wife who wanted a divorce. This is not proper use of anger, obviously. We know that September 11, 2001 occurred because of anger misplaced. Anger that is out-of-control can be incredibly destructive and we want to avoid this. Anger is not to bring us to sinning. God, through the apostle Paul, tells us to be angry but not to sin, so there is a balance to maintain. I’m sure this balance is the seed from which all our childhood teaching about anger has sprung.
However, God gets passionately angry sometimes.
Judges 2.20- passionate anger because his people were untrue. (Read from v.15-22). This emotion is similar to jealousy, but takes it farther into action that shows that. It’s important to see that this is not some ‘minor upset’. This is not some little bit concerned. God is passionately angry and took steps to be clear about this.
Ezek.5.11-13- God follows through so that people understood both what he instructed and that there are consequences. There was unrighteousness in the land and God responded to that very clearly.
There is unrighteousness in the country and sometimes it’s appropriate to be angry about that. Murder, abuse, injustice, racism, and discrimination are activities that warrant Christian’s anger and, dare I say, intolerance? We’re far too passive on far too many issues. I don’t believe that God exhibits, or we need to exhibit, vein-popping anger every day. But there are times to do this. Again, thinking back to God’s jealousy, there’s room for anger about people discounting church and the value of church, for instance. We’re not talking about some simple ‘difference of opinion’; if someone discounts God’s family, that needs to be confronted. Anger has its place in the arsenal of emotions available to the Christian- when properly and carefully used, it can enable us to look a bit more like God and, through that, to express greater daily worship toward Him.
Do you know that God is tender, sympathetic, and compassionate? These are often termed ‘feminine’ emotions or ‘girly’, by some who don’t understand their place in sound emotional makeup. To stop on the street and to minister to someone living there, or to express deep sympathy for someone’s pain or crisis involves important serving toward someone else. God praises the ability to cry when someone cries, and to rejoice when someone rejoices; this is what sympathy and compassion are about.
Deut. 32.36- God has compassion on weak and troubled people. We know there are lots of those around us. This is a weak and troubled world. We see the impact of sin and poor life patterns from generations ago that have an impact now. We see people locked in a vicious cycle of poverty and joblessness, which is very troubling. We see people locked in addictions and unhealthy lifestyles. We worship God by being compassionate toward such, rather than by condemning them. It’s easy to make a shoebox, for instance, to send to someone who is weak and troubled far away from here, but what about expressing something toward people here. I’ve learned something about this from Abbie, since her return from Africa. If we eat out and have leftovers, she asks for a take-away box. Last time, this was downtown, and she asked me to buy another coke, to go with it. Then she and Erika found a man on the street, beside where our van was parked, and simply went to him and told him that they’d like him to enjoy this dinner. His eyes lit up incredibly! I’ve never done that, but I’ve learned something of how to be compassionate.
Psa. 103.13- God is tender and sympathetic to those who respect him. This should be us, of course, and I hope it is. This tells us that we don’t have to beat on God to get him to hear us. He wants to hear us and wants to respond to us. I’ve heard enough prayers over the years and am amazed when people think they need to yell and cry and posture with God, in order to get him to listen. He is tender and sympathetic to those who respect him. Keep your respect to him right and there’s no question about whether he’ll respond. He wants to respond.
There are a couple other emotions that are a bit surprising, I think. Do you know that God is glad? That’s a happy emotion and brings back images of the movie Pollyanna, and her playing of ‘the glad game’. But, scripture tells us that God is glad.
1 Chron.16.27
In the same vein, God is amused sometimes.
Psa.2.4- when he sees our puny plans and efforts, it amuses him. I don’t believe God is dismissive, but to know that he finds amusement in me is a good thing- I find, and have found, great amusement in my children over the years.
Then, he delights in His people (Psa.18.19) and he enjoys his children (Psa.35.37) and he delights in each step good people take (Psa.37.23). These all give us some idea of how God responds to us. Delight is a wonderful word that conjures up pictures of children when they receive a special present, or on Christmas morning, as I remember that. But this is God delighting that way- to me, it carries some idea of childish excitement, and this is God who has it! It’s light and bubbly. When we are, either here, or throughout our lives, it honours God and has us worshipping God. Sometimes when we enjoy something, we simply sit down and are overwhelmed and simply enjoy it. This is something wonderful to do sometimes when we’re with God. Sometimes, you might be enjoying singing around you and simply want to sit down and enjoy it- this is more than acceptable to do. Enjoyment is so good.
Finally, I’d like to remind us of how God loves intensely and passionately.
1 Jn.4.16- this is no unemotional ‘love’. This involves much feeling and expression and this is about us. This takes delight and enjoyment to a higher level, yet is the root of them.
Conclusion
God is emotional, often passionate, but rarely placid. The Bible gives a view of the emotional side of God that many have never examined. I think all of us have, but we need reminding so we are freer to express God in us and to express toward Him. I’ve learned a lot about emotions and their acceptability over the years. I’ve been able to leave behind ‘some’ of my lack of emotions from my past. That’s simply a serious case of emotional immaturity, even as emotions out of all control express immaturity, too. But between the two ranges of immaturity, there’s a lot of expression that is enriching.
