Back to School Resource Guide
Back to School Resource Guide
When You Beat Yourself Up with the Gospel
Allowed to Feel
One thing I run into a ton in pastoral ministry and soul care, especially as a counselor, is people who feel a sense of failure because of their emotions. On one hand, obviously, the gospel is at the center of our freedom and our hope and the grace and mercy of Jesus that comes to us. In any failure you have anywhere—in your actions, thoughts, or emotions—we have forgiveness.
We have a God who not only can pardon us but who even transforms us in the midst of our failings to grow. And so you can look at something in yourself and know that it is not good and know that the Lord is working in you, even by identifying that. He only ever convicts us when he intends to grow us. So, there’s hope even when there’s failure in our lives.
Having said that, one of the things that makes me saddest is when I watch Christians actually use the gospel—the best promises and truths of Scripture—to beat themselves up and make themselves feel worse, in particular about their 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.
Feeling bad about your emotions is normal. It’s a common human experience, whether secular or religious. But there’s a particular way in which Christians actually take the gospel and say God is in control, he’s the Lord of all things, all things will work together for good—even our sins—and so we should therefore be happy all the time. We should never feel bad in any way because God is sovereign. And so therefore, if all things are working together and bringing him glory, what right do we ever have to feel grief, to feel anger, to feel discouragement, or to feel fear?
I have watched people who actually feel more guilty, dismayed, or hopeless because they’ve somehow managed to turn the gospel and the promises of Christ into the very reason they should never be allowed to feel badly.
We have a God who not only can pardon us but who even transforms us in the midst of our failings to grow.
The gospel is so much better than that. The gospel not only allows us to feel broken by what is distressing and tragic, but it actually says that our God is working in us and through us. We were meant to have emotions that reflect his, and there are things he hates or that make him angry or distressed.
So if you’re feeling like a spiritual failure because of your emotions, there’s a huge chance—if you’re a Christian—that that is because you’re actually reading God’s goodness, his promises, and his sovereign control and ability to hold and care for you as the reason why you shouldn’t feel those things and you should feel even worse about yourself.
And most likely, what you need to do is to learn to lament, to run to the Lord and say, Lord, here are the weights and the burdens on my heart, and to bring them to him rather than to repent of them, crush them, or run away from them.
J. Alasdair Groves is the coauthor with Winston T. Smith of Untangling Emotions.
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