Advent Devotionals
Advent Devotionals
Follow Your Emotions and You’ll Find Your Idols
Idols of the Heart
Two grease-dripping, foot-long, melt-in-the-mouth tender cheesesteaks. This, I learned, had been dinner the past three straight nights for the man now fidgeting in the soft, wingbacked chair in my counseling office. While a caloric catastrophe, his over-indulgence in Philly’s finest fare (and I do recommend you try the authentic item if you are ever in the greater Philadelphia area—just one per day though) was actually a victory for our work together. You see, my friend was talking to me as a counselor in the first place because his appetites had ruined his life and marriage. He was faking overnight business trips so he could douse his bloodstream with liquor and marijuana while binge-watching pornography. Our conversation occurred on the first day he’d been clean for more than twenty-four hours, and he found himself ravenous for something to tickle his taste buds, something to give him a physical rush. Hence the cheesesteaks.
While we celebrated his fledgling progress, my friend was also brought up short. He saw that his desperation for stimulation was not gone; it had simply latched onto another object. The evidence was inescapable that he was swapping out one set of lusts (booze, weed, porn) for another (food). Neither the “idols” in his heart (e.g., pleasure, comfort, escape) nor their grip on him had changed essentially.
Engaging Emotions Helps Us Combat Idolatry
One of the most powerful ways we can take up arms against the idols that vie to rule over each of us is to seek the Spirit’s help in engaging our emotions. Our emotions are like a map showing our deepest desires. Follow your emotions, and you will learn a great deal about what you truly worship, for “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21).
Emotions help us diagnose idolatry.
The first and most obvious way that our emotions help us fight back against idolatry is by highlighting what our idols actually are. Whatever your anxieties, your anger, your joy, and your grief swirl around is going to be something significant to you. “Important“ does not automatically mean idolatrous (more on this below), but you certainly won’t have any idols in your life that don’t register as important on the Richter scale of your emotions.
Untangling Emotions
J. Alasdair Groves, Winston T. Smith
This book sets forth a holistic view of emotions rooted in the Bible, offering a practical approach to engaging with both positive and negative emotions in a God-honoring way.
Scripture gives numerous examples of emotions betraying underlying idolatries. Take Simon the Sorcerer in Acts 8. Luke reiterates six times in three verses (Acts 8:9–11) that Simon is “amazing” or “great” in the eyes of the local populace. Thus, when the apostles come with miracles accompanying their preaching, Simon is severely upstaged. To his credit and in God’s mercy, he believes in Christ. However, he still yearns to be at the center of the action and, with a naively pathetic foolishness, sidles up to Peter to see if he can buy some of this miracle-producing power for himself. He demonstrates that his core loyalty is still dedicated to being “great” and people being “amazed” by him. His nascent faith has not yet undone his obsession with the praise of his fellow man. This is idolatry of the heart in its simplest form.
Here is where emotions come in. In Peter’s rebuke of Simon’s lust to harness the fire of Pentecost for the swelling of his own reputation, he descries in Simon “the gall of bitterness.” This emotion, this “bitterness” at being displaced, reveals his idolatrous craving for the spotlight. Our emotions always point toward the true objects of our worship.
Now the revelation of our deep loyalties can just as easily show the glorious work of God in us, as it can reveal warped worship. When the apostles are beaten for preaching the gospel, their response is “rejoicing” (Acts 5:40–41). Why? Because their love for and worship of Jesus led them to see the shame and pain as a sign of honor and blessing; they were being “counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name [of Christ]” (Acts 5:41).
In fact, sometimes it is actually our dark, unpleasant emotions that express lovely, righteous faith in God, and upbeat emotions that actually flow from our idolatry. When Jesus weeps (John 11:33–35), when Paul shares his anxiety on behalf of the churches (2 Cor. 11:28–29), when the psalmists and prophets grieve sin and suffering among God’s people, they feel it as a direct result of their godly worship. In the same way, “positive” feelings of elation when we indulge in or get away with sin or schadenfreude betray a worship of our own glory rather than a worshipful trust in the Lord.
Emotions can fuel worship of God.
Not only can our emotions point to where idols may lurk in our lives, but they can also enliven worship where we do want it directed: toward the Lord of heaven. This is because our emotions were built into humanity in the first place to connect our hearts to the Lord himself. We were made to love what he loves and hate what he hates. We were made to “rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.” And what greater relationship in which to exercise that than our friendship with God himself? Indeed, the very invitation to pray, to “pour out [our] heart at all times” (Ps. 62:8b), presupposes that God wants to hear and engage our emotions with us and wants us to share his joys and sorrows1 as he watches the beautiful, broken world on this side of Glory.
The more we perceive and come to share his heart, the more we will see God for who he is. The more we see him, the more we will worship in awe, and the more the idols cannot help but all fall away (Isa. 2:17–18).
Our emotions always point toward the true objects of our worship.
A Word of Caution: Beware “Idol Hunting”
As the saying goes, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I’ve also observed that to a Christian enamored with the helpfulness of identifying idolatry, there is a danger that every emotion can look like the mask of an idol just waiting for someone perceptive enough to yank it off. I love how “idols” language helps identify areas of needed transformation, and I can personally testify how battling “idols” with clear eyes has been helpful.
My concern is that, once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to overdo it. All grief, all anger, all frustration, all anxiety, and even simply all strong feelings can become evidence that there is something you are loving too much. Sadly, I’ve seen well-intended helpers function as if the goal of the Christian life is Stoicism, the pursuit of an emotional zen-like state where no negative emotion is ever felt. Such thinking excises much of the Psalter, numerous lines from the Epistles, and vital moments in the life of our Lord. Indeed, I suspect the urgency to hunt idols sometimes reflects our inordinate obsession with being right, being helpful, being the one with the answer.
There is not an idol under every outburst of displeasure. Our goal is to listen for what emotions are saying, hear what loves lie beneath them, and affirm what is Spirit-wrought as much or more than condemn what is idolatrous. This requires patience, wisdom, and humility.
He Will Help You
Awareness that you may be letting something usurp God’s place on the throne of your heart is sobering, and rightly so. And, if you’ve spent any time honestly examining your own feelings and desires, or those of others, you know how difficult it is to be utterly certain where the lines run. What is godly love of preaching, serving, loving, community, and where is idolatry creeping into even some of your purest motives and gospel-joyful sentiments?
Thanks be to our kind Father that, in his mercy, our hope is not in perfectly or exhaustively identifying our idols! Instead, the Spirit patiently invites us to see disorientations and false worship in our souls, little by little. He gives us as much as we can handle and invites us to repent, to grow, to rest in his patience, and to delight more deeply in his sanctifying work. He knows where our hearts stand even when we are blind, and he is merciful. So he kindly convicts us as we mature of places our hearts praise other objects than him, freeing us step by step, round after round against the same seemingly inexhaustible opponent from gods who will only ever leave us parched and broken in the end. Our hope is not our ability to drive out ungodly affections, but his ability to grow our love for him more and more, keeping us until the day when all our feelings will make idolatry impossible forever.
Notes:
- I am not here denying the doctrine of God’s impassibility. For a discussion of my view of God’s unchanging, “passionless” nature, see the Appendix to Untangling Emotions (Crossway, 2019).
J. Alisdair Groves is the author of Untangling Emotions.
Related Articles
How to Fight Your Phone Idolatry
When we scroll immoderately, we become idolaters, hopelessly hooked into a drip feed of sweet-tasting poison that will never satisfy. If we can’t break free, we’ll scroll ourselves to spiritual death.
4 Emotions That Are Hidden Beneath Your Anger
Christopher Ash, Steve Midgley
We should take time to notice the way that other emotions are so often at work alongside, or underneath, our anger.
9 Ways Emotions Play a Role in Theological Diversity
Because human beings are complex creatures with reason, will, and emotion, no reductionistic scheme can explain why we reason or why we dissent the way we do.
Remember These Two Things When Your Emotions Feel out of Control
There’s something deeply right about being out of control of your emotions. We were not made to control our emotions—at least that we were made to be affected by the world around us.
