God made us emotional beings, housed in a body with a cognitive brain that thinks and an emotional brain that simultaneously “feels.” 

Beloved in Christ, God not only understands our emotions, but He created us with physical brains… that automatically have them. 

Many faithful and mature children of God (e.g., Moses, Elijah, Job, and David) experienced emotional suffering from “mental health” challenges. I wonder if we have laments in Job and other places of Scripture (like the Psalms) to show us that God compassionately understands our “feelings” of suffering by including them in His inspired Word. 

But He also came to earth to live in a body like ours, incarnated as God the Son, fully experiencing emotions as we do, yet in a sinless life.

Jesus’ emotions over sin’s unbelief and pride

And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign?” (Mk. 8:12 ESV)

Jesus’ emotions over this fallen world of sin and the resulting suffering

I’ve learned that emotion is not sin or lack of faith; our sinless Savior had them.

So, we can freely share how we feel with our heavenly Father…so that we don’t sin!

Jesus did!

Hard, ongoing, perhaps lifelong suffering brings relentless waves of emotion, doesn’t it? 

Our Suffering Servant, our Savior, is right there with us in our every embodied emotion, our longing for relief, and our groans of emotional pain. 

He was despised and rejected by men,
    a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief  
and as one from whom men hide their faces
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not (Is. 53:3 ESV).

(“Lord, we Lie Before Thy Feet,” Hart, J., 1872)

Bringing our emotions to the feet of Jesus when we’re tempted to sin as we suffer

So, let’s allow our emotions to bring us to Jesus, to point us to Jesus, even to drive us to Jesus. Let’s lie before His feet and groan. Let’s sit at the foot of the cross and hear His groans in our place. 

Let’s bring our groans to the One who groans with us, preventing a hardened heart, a strong temptation of sin when we suffer. 

Let’s bring our every emotion to the One who also needed to honestly pour out His emotions to our Father every day of His earthly life of suffering.

He suffered far more than we ever could…for our own sin.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15 ESV).

Bringing our emotions to the feet of Jesus, receiving comfort in our affliction

As we continually tell our Lord how we feel throughout the day,

hearing Him speak back to us through His Spirit’s illumination of His Word,

we realize we’re mysteriously connected to Jesus in His suffering.

What a comfort to our hurting hearts when we know this is His way for us, resisting temptation to sin. 

“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too” (2 Corinthians 1:5).

We discover that our 

just as He comforted our Savior.

Material adapted from Singing the Gospel to Job: Finding Hope in Suffering, Lauri A. Hogle, © 2022

A healing playlist, bringing our emotions to Jesus, lying before His feet

Lately, my emotions have been all over the place, for suffering is relentless. Oh, how our Lord understands the weight. So, this week’s music therapy-inspired worship music playlist gift helps us both in bringing our emotions to Jesus (there may be healing tears as we sing), to sing God’s mercies and comfort to us in Scripture and songs that echo its truths (more healing tears…His peace, rest, life, and power to endure faithfully).

I’m praying it will help you too, as we both groan…with Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

If this might bless you, sign up below, or perhaps other resources of our ministry might help?

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