Sincerity and Feeling
Rich Asks: What do you think about sincerity? If someone “acts on the truth despite a lack of feeling,” are they really being sincere?
Thanks for your prayers and thoughts Rich! You are asking a very good and, I think, deep question. It merits thought and attention. For now, what I would say is that you can be sincere in believing the truth even when not feeling the thing in your heart. As we can believe the death of a loved-one is somehow related to Romans 8:28 when we have no possible understanding how, and do not understand the truth with and through our feelings. Then we have sincerity by believing God AND admitting our struggle and questions. To be insincere is to smile and say I totally feel Romans 8:28 in my heart in the midst of the grief when you do not. So sincerity is about honesty, not about emotion matching perfectly what we believe to be true. Over time, the degree of the match will improve as we dig and struggle and live out of the truth. That is what we are striving for, and that striving is sincere.
Mind and Emotion
Jenessa writes: I agree that we need balance. I am a bit confused about the way that the Holy Spirit transforms us. The Bible says, ‘be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Is this in isolation of our emotions being transformed and balanced and put into right perspective?
Janessa,
Thanks so much for your thoughtful question. I would argue that the renewing of the mind includes the emotions, as emotions are part of the mind. The Hebraic mindset really saw the mind as referring more to a holistic you rather than the western idea of just reason and logic. The word does speak to the intellect in my view, but this is not intellect separate from emotion as we often see it in our modern world. So the renewal is very much connected to the emotions. Further, as emotions are linked with thinking, as we renew the way we think, the emotions will also naturally be renewed – although it may take some time to sink down deep. When are emotions are transforming is when we can know that the truth is making its way deep into us.
Emotion and Their Physical Responses
Don writes: One issue I was looking to understand better is how emotions are tagged to physical responses. You wrote how that’s why the Church and rationalists suppress emotions. I have observed how certain emotions relate to physical responses both good and bad and the opposite is true too. I think it conditions us to gratify or repress certain emotions or seek to gratify or repress certain physical responses.
Great Questions Don, here are some thoughts.
This is something we all wrestle with, what feelings in our bodies are tied to our emotions, and what feelings are just because we are bodies are reacting to something directly? On a basic level, emotions are not necessarily linked to a particular feeling in our body. In early psychology, William James and others, wanted to find a permanent link for every emotion to a particular sensation so they could study emotions by looking at how the body felt. But nobody could do that successfully. In fact, researchers were so unsuccessful that they had to move on – there is no sure way to measure or quantify an emotion by how your body is feeling.
If we look at philosophy, we also find very strong arguments for the fact that emotions are only necessarily linked to our thoughts, values and judgments and require no corresponding feeling in our body. They are independent from bodily sensation. For more on this, you need to read the early sections of Faithful Feelings.
That is good to know, because it means we need to be careful in figuring out one to one correlations with what we are feeling emotionally and what our body feels physically. Our body relates to our emotions, but it relates to all manner of other things as well, so the signals it is giving us can be based on a combination of all kinds of things.
On a practical level, our emotions very often find expression in our bodies. How our bodies feel can be used as one indicator of the intensity and nature of an emotion we are experiencing. We can cry in sorrow or we can cry for joy or we can cry because we just hit our thumb with a hammer – a person on the outside may interpret our tears as sorrow when in fact they are for happiness. Only us, who know why we are crying, can correctly interpret the tears. But even we need to be careful. Are we crying over “spilled milk” (something minor) because it is really that upsetting, or is it because our bodies are stressed and exhausted? Each situation requires its own unique analysis. As we mature, we get better and better at figuring these things out quickly and correctly.
We need to recognize that we are complex, that we are so integrated that each part of us is so deeply interrelated – the rational, the physical, the emotional – that they are all always reacting to each other. Sometimes, it is easy to tell how our emotions are affecting us physically. Other times we need to do a little digging, even getting some help to unravel our feelings and emotions and learn how to be more mature emotionally and spiritually. I believe that as we do that, we can undo some of the unhelpful links our mind has created between our bodies and our emotions – like we get sick to our stomach building toward an ulcer when we increase in anxiety – while learning healthy emotional expressions in our body. We need to learn to face hard emotions as emotions, not allowing them to destroy and harm our bodies as they have to leak out somewhere. We can also learn healthy physical expressions for our love, joy as we let them out to bless our families and friends in laughter, hugs, or other forms of expression and affection.
Fear and Salvation
Brian writes: If my emotions are to be trusted and listened to, and if they are “true” then my feelings of unworthiness are true, even though my rational mind tries to reject them. There are times when I can see a cross and feel a great fear of judgment and hopelessness, when instead I should feel hope and joy at the grace that cross represents. Instead, I want to cower in a corner and think about something else. Since this is what I fear, and these emotions are true and to be trusted, I don’t know what to do. In this, I desperately feel like I want to believe my head, that I’m saved, covered by grace, and worthy, and disbelieve my emotions that I’m worthless, that I’ve blown it too many times, that I’ve hardened my heart and that I’m abandoned. Have you ever encountered this, and do you have any insight for me?
Brian,
I am so blessed to hear from you and I am so blessed by your honesty. We all have deep struggles in a broken and sinful world. For the first parts of your struggle, I believe that God can be faithful in opening your heart to feel again. Start opening doors to everyday emotions, and ask God earnestly for more, that you need and want more love, more joy, more hope, more of Him. Please write me again when you have finished the book – perhaps the next chapters will help in this regard.
For the paragraphs about fear, praise God, this is an easy answer. As John writes to us: ”I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life.” My point in FEEL, which I hope you will see clearly, as your read on, is that emotions tell you the truth about YOU, your beliefs, your values, your thoughts – not that they always tell you the truth. Many times they can tell you the truth about others or the world and we need to listen, but other times they are only speaking the truth about your beliefs and thinking. I too battle feelings of anxiety and questioning of God’s promises and sometimes I am afraid. And we all may be there sometimes until we are with Him.
As John also tells us, we all remain sinners and whoever says he is without sin is a liar and deceives themselves. You ARE covered by the grace and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. He promises that even when we are faithless he remains faithful because he cannot deny himself. It is tough, and a process, but you must work the head knowledge down into your heart. Memorize promises that say how God really feels about you, call a friend in a down moment, talk to a pastor after church, find a good counselor, shoot me an email – do whatever it takes to begin to change those deeply held beliefs that inform the fear. God has called you, God has found you, God has loved you with an everlasting love if you have believed on the Lord Jesus and accepted his sacrifice for your sins. Come against the lies that our enemy tells, and work the truth into the fabric of your life. As your faith and trust grows, as God’s truth is not just known but believed then your emotions will change. This is a hard thing because it is not about what we say we believe but rather about what we actually believe deep down. It may take some wrestling with God to get there, some brutal honesty about your hurt and anger and fear. God is big enough to take it all and love you anyway as his precious child. Nothing you can say to him will surprise Him, He already knows. Let it all out and feel His loving embrace of comfort and acceptance. He will come to heal you as you trust in Him- I believe.
Bless you Brian, and God be close to you. With love and prayers.
Emotions and Feelings
Mike asks: “When I reached the 7th blog in your book I was shocked to read the part that says that emotions and feelings are different. When I read through the chapter I see your point and I agree that they differ but there are some things in which I cannot pin point the whether they are feelings or emotions, I am really confused when it comes to this matter. Things like love, I know that love has a feeling and it has an emotion. There are times where we feel loved and when it is really love and I can’t really see when they differ. Things like laughter, is laughter the emotion or simply the feeling we get from being joyful?”
Wow, that is a lot to think about, Mike. My major point is that emotions are about our thoughts, our minds, our thinking process. They are not based or centered in our body or nerves as many early psychologists taught. See Faithful Feelings for a review of the history of this. If emotions were based in our body, we could never know the difference between being sick because of the flu and being sick out of being nervous – for example. The attachment to thinking is what makes the nervous emotional.
We could also look at it like the classic question, “What came first, the chicken or the egg.” We affirm, the thinking – conscious or unconscious – came first. Anything else is logically impossible – again see Faithful Feelings. Feelings, in a strict sense, is what we feel in our bodies and these come after the emotion, are caused by the emotion. So we laugh at something because we THINK it is funny, we feel butterflies because we THINK something or someone is lovable. Emotions produce physical feelings in out bodies much of the time – sometimes they do not but most of the time they do. Yes, sometimes you need to think, “hmm, do I have this stomach thing because of that extra piece of cheesecake or because I am about the propose to my girl?” If we think about it a bit and give it some time, usually we can figure that out without too much trouble.
Hope that helps Mike.
Faith Proved by Facts or Feelings
A FEEL reader writes: I’m curious what implications this has for evangelism which seems to be mostly about apologetics and intellectual reasons for God and Jesus. My husband has not been walking with God for the past few years which is awfully sad to me. Well-meaning people keep giving him books that defend Christianity intellectually. I’m about through with this! I have felt for a long time that the struggle is for his heart and emotions, which seems to confound other people. I have a sinking feeling that people would rather give him a book than engage him emotionally. I read your book because of this statement, “The true health of our spiritual lives is measured by how we feel.” I know you meant this for Christians following Christ, but I suspect that emotional health is key for someone who is considering accepting Christ’s unconditional love.
What a great question! First off, let me say that there is a place for facts and proofs – more power to those defending a faith that is true and a God that is truth. Hard searching for truth will lead people to God. That said, God’s proof is also written on our hearts – has God changed us? Can people see that in our faces and love for others? Do we feel it?
If emotions, show us truth, if they are all tied up with what we know and believe we can say all the words to prove God and Jesus but those people are looking to see if these things are true for us, do WE really believe what we say? Do you love me? It would be a good exercise to systematize these things in the Bible but some things that come to mind for me include the commands not to divorce an unbeliever, but to live in a way that brings them to God. The strongest testimonies and proofs for God are written upon our hearts and people know that instinctively. That is what brings them over the edge – “You will know them by their love.”
While we are giving arguments those around us are asking, “do YOU really believe it, do you feel it?” Emotions show the truth, and to listen to the proofs, people need to see that you believe it in a way that it naturally overflows in real emotions toward God and others.
So how you FEEL about God and others? Does it line up with the truths you give lip-service to? For me, all to often it does not and that is when we need to do some business with God to get feeling right. When people and churches get feelings and proofs together, on the same page, that is when we see people drawn to Jesus.