The key to resilience isn’t stuffing your emotions, it’s harnessing them. Feelings aren’t sinful. They are signposts to draw us toward greater dependence on God.
Truth and Lies: Emotions aren’t sinful or weak. They were created by God, and even God experiences them.
The lie we believe is that feelings are bad, to be battled. But feelings aren’t sinful. They are signposts to draw us toward greater dependence on God.
Emotions are sinful – we need to use our heads
Truth: Thinking is good, but so is feeling! God created our emotions.
Emotions are weak – we need to stuff them
Truth: Emotions can lead us to a deeper experience of God
Even God has emotions! Examples:
AngerExodus 32:9-10 (NLT) Then the LORD said, “I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.”
Also, Jesus flipped over the tables
GriefGenesis 6:6 (NLT) So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.
Mark 3:5 (NLT) He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored!
JoyZephaniah 3:17 (NLT) For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
John 15:11 (NLT) I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!
Back to the point: Emotions aren’t sinful or weak. They were created by God, and even God experiences them.
How emotions can help us:
Anger can motivate us to be world-changers
William Wilberforce and other abolitionists in the 18th and 19th centuries were driven by righteous anger against the inhumanity of the transatlantic slave trade. Their advocacy and activism eventually led to the abolition of the slave trade and, later, slavery itself in the British Empire.
Sophie Scholl, along with her brother Hans and other members of the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany, expressed righteous anger against the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. They distributed leaflets denouncing the regime’s crimes and were eventually executed for their courageous resistance.
Fear can awaken us to a spiritual reality
Shame can lead us to experience grace
For some, shame and guilt for their past actions
For others, shame for what someone has done to you
Grief can open us up to the ultimate Comforter
We’ll be talking about all of this over the next five weeks…
Guard your heart: Our hearts determine the course of our lives, and that includes our mind, will, and emotions.
Here’s the verse that we’ll lean on throughout this series:
Proverbs 4:23 (NLT) Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
We need to understand what the “Heart” is in the OT and how it relates to our emotional lives… and resilience (See The Meaning of “Heart” in Hebrew)
In biblical Hebrew, the heart is best understood as the “inner person” – the seat of our mind (thoughts), emotions (feelings), and will (intentions). Psalm 37:4, Proverbs 4:23, James 1:14-15
What this means: it’s all connected! Our thoughts, feelings, and intentions are woven together by God’s design
So again, emotions aren’t bad intrinsically. They’re neutral
Back to the verse
Guard your heart – protect it, pay attention to it, learn about it
Don’t stuff it
Don’t rationalize
This includes your emotions
Because it’s all connected
How you feel affects how you think, and vice versa
Defining “Resilient”
Definition (Oxford): the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
Bouncing back
Reacting in a healthy way to our trials
And we will have them
Our definition: Resilience is harnessing difficult emotions to build your faith.
Remember: Satan wants to manipulate them to destroy our faith
So many people experience difficult emotions and then bail on God
Anger
Fear
Shame
Grief
Comes from a misunderstanding of emotions and life
We will have difficulty in life
We can sit with the attending emotion
harness them
Learn from them
THAT is resilience
Close
One more thing:
This isn’t just a self-help series for the secular world
It’s a pointer every week to the only One who can truly help us.
The bad news in the Bible is that our hearts (our inner selves) are fundamentally broken because of sin. The good news is that God can change our hearts in an instant – the moment we place our faith in Jesus.
Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT) “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”
Self-deception
So easy to be the victim
Ezekiel 36:26 (NLT) And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.
This includes redeeming our emotions
Talking Points:
The key to resilience isn’t stuffing your emotions, it’s harnessing them. Feelings aren’t sinful. They are signposts to draw us toward greater dependence on God.
Emotions aren’t sinful or weak. They were created by God, and even God experiences them. Exodus 32:9-10, Mark 3:5
Our hearts determine the course of our lives, and that includes our mind, will, and emotions. Our thoughts, feelings, and intentions are woven together by God’s design. Proverbs 4:23
Many people experience difficult emotions and then bail on God. Resilience is harnessing difficult emotions to build your faith.
The bad news in the Bible is that our hearts (our inner selves) are fundamentally broken because of sin. The good news is that God can change our hearts in an instant – the moment we place our faith in Jesus. Jeremiah 17:9, Ezekiel 36:26
Discussion:
Read the talking points above as a group, including scripture references. What are your initial thoughts about these points or about the podcast lesson (see audio above)?
Have you ever found yourself trying to suppress your emotions rather than acknowledging them as part of your faith journey? Give an example.
The Bible points out that even God experiences emotions. How is it different from how we experience emotions? How is it the same?
Proverbs 4:23 suggests that our hearts influence the course of our lives. How do you see the interconnectedness of thoughts, feelings, and intentions in your own life? Give an example.
Give an example of when someone bailed on God because of anger, fear, shame, or grief. Has it ever happened (or almost happened) with you?
The Bible highlights the brokenness of our hearts due to sin (Jeremiah 17:9) but also promises transformation through faith in Jesus (Ezekiel 36:26). How have you experienced this transformation in your life, and how does it influence the way you navigate your emotions?
The official faith and life podcast for the discipleship resources at pursueGOD.org. Great for families, small groups, and one-on-one mentoring. New sermonlink topics every Friday.
