God is emotional
"Boys don't cry."
"Women are emotional."
"Don't be a wimp!"
"The church is only for sissies."
You have probably heard these statements before. They give the impression that emotionality has something to do with weakness. It is said that one has to be strong and strict in order to progress and succeed in life. As a man, you have to pretend that you have no feelings. As a woman who wants to be successful in the business world, you have to be hard, cool and emotional. Emotional women have no place in the executive suite. Is it really like that? Should we be emotional or not? Are we more normal when we show less emotions? How did God create us? Has he created us as sentimental, emotional beings or not? Some say that men are less emotional and that's why God created humans as less emotional creatures. This thought led to many stereotypes about men and women. Society claims that men are less emotional and women in turn are too emotional.
Humans were created in the image of God. But what kind of image is that, exactly? Paul said of Jesus: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” (Kol 1,15)To understand who we are as the image of God, we must look to Jesus, because he is the true image of God. Our true identity: Satan, the deceiver, has wanted to deceive us about our true identity from the very beginning. I believe that our emotional world is also part of our identity, and Satan wants to deceive us regarding our feelings. He tries to make us believe that it is weak and foolish to perceive feelings and give them space. Paul said about Satan that he has blinded the unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2. Kor 4,4).
The truth is: God is emotional! People are emotional! Men are emotional! A recent study by a psychological institute (Mindlab) found that men are more emotional than women. The emotional reactions of men and women were measured on a psychological level. It was shown that, although more emotions were measured in men than in women, the test subjects felt them less. Women showed fewer emotions during the measurement, but felt them more than the male test subjects.
Humans are emotional beings. To be emotional is to be human. And conversely: to be unfeeling is to be inhuman. If you have no emotions and feelings, then you are not a truly human being. When a child is raped, it is inhuman to feel nothing. Unfortunately, we are conditioned to suppress our feelings as if they were something bad. Many Christians struggle with the idea of an angry Jesus. He is too emotional for them. They don't know what to make of a Jesus who acts like this: "And he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the herds, and poured out the money of the money changers and overturned the tables." (Joh 2,15)They also don't know what to make of a Jesus who weeps and sobs for a dead friend. But Johannes 11,35The Gospel of Luke reports exactly that. Jesus wept more than we realize. Luke also tells us this: "And when he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it." (Lk 19,41)The Greek word for weeping here means to sob loudly. I'm glad that Jesus was angry and expressed his feelings—even if he wept. I'd rather serve a sensitive God than an unfeeling one. The God revealed in the Bible is a God of anger, jealousy, grief, joy, love, and compassion. If God had no feelings, he wouldn't care whether we went to eternal fire or not. Precisely because he has such deep feelings for us, he sent his own son into this world to die once and for all for all humanity. Thank God he is emotional. Humans are emotional because they are made in the image of an emotional God.
Emotions for the right things
Allow yourself to be emotional. It is human, even divine, to be like that. Do not allow the devil to make you inhuman. Pray that Heavenly Father will help you to feel emotions for the right things. Do not be angry about high food prices. Be angry about murder, rape and child abuse. TV and computer games can kill our feelings. It's easy to get to a point where we do not feel anything, even to Christians who are being killed for their beliefs. For sexual immorality that we see on TV and in the cinema, for children orphaned by HIV and Ebola.
One of the biggest problems with sin is the corruption of our emotions. We do not know what it feels like to be. Pray that through the Holy Spirit, the Father will heal your emotional life and change your emotions to those of Jesus. So that you can cry for things that Jesus cried for, that are angry at those on whom Jesus was angry and passionate about things for which Jesus was passionately committed.
by Takalani Musekwa
