Emotions In Sync

Emotions in Sync

Then she went back and began to eat again, and she was no longer sad. 1 Samuel 1:18

MANY CHRISTIANS HAVE BEEN TOLD that emotions belong in the back seat of their lives, that feelings should never be allowed to steer us away from truth. There’s some truth to that, but emotions are absolutely essential for bonding with an emotional God, and they are accurate indicators of what we really believe. If our hearts are in turmoil, then we are not confident that things are going to work out for our good or according to our prayers; if our hearts are at peace, then we are trusting and resting in God’s good purposes for our lives. What we feel is like the light on the dashboard that tells us what’s going on inside the engine. And if our feelings are out of sorts, we know to look under the hood.

One moment, Hannah was deeply distressed and pleading with God for help. The next moment, “she was no longer sad.” The only thing that happened between those two moments was the blessing she received from a priest for God to grant what she had requested. Based on nothing more, her heart shifted from tumult to calm, from worry to relief, from distress to rest. She simply believed what he said. She apparently wasn’t confident that God would answer her prayers merely because she prayed them; she was confident only in the confirmation that came from one of God’s servants. She heard the confirming word and counted on it.

Hannah’s emotions affected her faith, and then her faith affected her emotions. There is no lesson in this passage about getting rid of emotions and living by robotic adherence to truth. No, we are told repeatedly throughout Scripture that God has compassion, joy, delight, zeal, anger, jealousy, and grief. They are holy emotions, to be sure, but they are feelings nonetheless. We live by faith not by stripping our emotional lives away but by synchronizing them with God’s heart. And when we take his promises to be true, we can rest in them, delight in them, and rejoice. Hannah did, and she was able to go home and eat again, waiting expectantly for God to fulfill his Word.

Faith is . . . such an inward and felt assurance and hearty and joyful embracing of truth, as to produce corresponding feeling and action, and to exclude doubt.