God of Emotions

We are starting our time together by reminding ourselves that God in some ways is like us but more importantly “God is With Us.” This week we discover that we have a “God of Emotions.” Our scripture comes from 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27. The words will be on the screen.

1 After the death of Saul, David returned from striking down the Amalekites and stayed in Ziklag two days.

17 David took up this lament concerning Saul and his son Jonathan, 18 and he ordered that the people of Judah be taught this lament of the bow (it is written in the Book of Jashar):

19 “A gazelle lies slain on your heights, Israel. How the mighty have fallen! 20 “Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice. 21 “Mountains of Gilboa, may you have neither dew nor rain, may no showers fall on your terraced fields. For there the shield of the mighty was despised, the shield of Saul—no longer rubbed with oil. 22 “From the blood of the slain, from the flesh of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan did not turn back, the sword of Saul did not return unsatisfied.

23 Saul and Jonathan— in life they were loved and admired, and in death they were not parted. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. 24 “Daughters of Israel, weep for Saul, who clothed you in scarlet and finery, who adorned your garments with ornaments of gold. 25 “How the mighty have fallen in battle! Jonathan lies slain on your heights. 26 I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women. 27 “How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished!”

Please pray with me…

We have become a world in many ways that is focused on emotion. All we need to do is look towards social media and the emojis and how we find ourselves expressing to the world how we are feeling without someone seeing us.

In many ways this is a good thing. Growing up it was not seen as OK for me to be emotional. It was in many ways looked at a negative trait. The problem we have is that we have transitioned to the point that emotions are often more important than anything else.

How I view myself is more important than the feelings and the emotional wellbeing of those that are around us. We have lost the ability to show our own emotions while also being willing to accept that someone else might feel differently than us.

It is a “me”instead of “we” dynamic. The Jewish culture was supposed to be a “we” based culture. We have a God who desires for us to not be alone. Our God wants us to be in community with others and to have the ability to interact in a reasonable way with those around us.

Our scripture today is the end of an emotional roller coaster involving the Jewish nation and specifically two important figures, Saul and David. Saul was the first human king of the Jewish people.

They had no human king for many years. God had been their king. They were led by the priests, the judges, and the prophets telling the people what God desired until they decided that they wanted to be like other nations and have a human king.

God led Samuel to Saul to become the human king that the Jewish people wanted. 1 Samuel leads us from Saul being anointed king to a point in which the relationship between God and Saul had become irreconcilable.

King Saul went against the wishes of God which leads Samuel to announce to Saul in 1 Samuel 15:26,

“You have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel!”

This decision has God send Samuel out to anoint the king that will be replacing Saul. God’s choice was the youngest son of a man named Jesse. The name of that son was David. The David who we find in today’s text.

(Transition)

With this information in mind, you most likely would not be surprised that David has decided to lament the death of his king. That is until you know the rest of the story. After being anointed David ends up where a battle is taking place between the Israelites and the Philistines.

A Philistine named Goliath challenges the Israelites to a one-on-one fight on who would win the battle and therefore be able to hold in slavery the other country. None of the soldiers are willing to fight and this is when David steps up.

This is when we get to the first emotion that we can look at. We have the soldiers of the Israel army in fear of going to battle against Goliath. We have even king Saul unwilling to trust that God would be with him and help him win.

This is the exact opposite example of what we find with David. David is offended that Goliath would challenge the Israelites and therefore would be challenging the Jewish God. He tells Saul he wants to fight and that he believes that God will be with him.

Many of us know how the battle ends. David ends up taking 5 stones and a sling shot into battle and it was the giant who came tumbling down and dying in the end.

(Transition)

Where does this fear come from? What made the soldiers afraid while a shepherd boy was willing to go into battle? The first step to understanding our emotions is self-evaluating where the emotion we are feeling is coming from

This stepcan often help us with our relationships with others and can allow God to help us use our emotions in a way that does not negatively impact our relationship with him and those around us.

Fear itself is not a bad emotion. There is a reason why God has given us “fear.” Fear sometimes keeps us out of harm’s way. But there are other times when fear becomes our reason to be unwilling to step out in faith.

One statement that you will hear me express often is “what is going to be greater your fear factor or your faith factor.” Meaning are you going to allow your human fear to be greater than your trust in God.

When I say this, I am not speaking of going to battle with a person. I am speaking of a willingness to help the person no one else is willing to help. A willingness to stand up for those whose voice has been silenced. A willingness to speak to someone about what Jesus has done in your life when God sets up the parameters for you to be able to do so.

We can find ourselves unwilling to be the person God desires for us to be because we are afraid of what those around us are going to say or think. We can end up not speaking up or stepping up because we would prefer to receive praise from the world instead of praise from God.

(Transition)

This victory by David has him rise up in popularity. His popularity leads to another emotion rising up in Saul, jealousy. Saul probably believed that through his position he was the most popular person in the area.

This spot now belongs to David. Jealousy leads to anger. Anger leads to Saul desiring to kill David. We have through much of the last half of 1 Samuel David running for his life. He tries to stay ahead of Saul knowing that if Saul finds him, he is going to kill him.

Christian author Jennie Allen in her book “Untangle Your Emotions” looks at controlling our emotions being like a train. She says for us to look at our soul as a train with an engine pulling two cars. If your emotions are the engine, then they can drive you off the cliff.

She believes this is why it is important that your will focused on God should be your engine so that your emotions are able to follow the will of God. It is when your emotions are the engine that we can find ourselves in situations that can lead us into trouble.

We can sense this occurring in Saul. He has forgotten about God. His ego and possibly self-doubt has led him into putting his emotions as the engine of his mind. His focus is on self-preservation. His ego cannot allow David to be seen as greater than him.

That is why David’s reaction to the death of Saul is so amazing. He has every right to be angry at Saul. He has every right to desire to see a bad outcome for Saul. He should have wanted Saul dead. He should be celebrating (Silence) but instead he laments Saul’s death.

(Transition)

Lament is a form of grieving something that you have lost. It is laying out to God your feelings. We find lament throughout scripture including a whole book of the Bible. It is a way that people have found helpful in dealing with their grief.

You may have something that is holding you back. You may have something that you need to lament.

For me it was events of my past had led me to anger. My anger was impacting my relationship with those around me.

Eventually I reached a point where I asked God to help. Do I still get angry of course. Do I sometimes not put God as the engine, yes. But it happens a lot less frequently and what I have found it has led other emotions to now occur more often.

If you are struggling, try turning your pain over to God. See if he can help you overcome your struggles. Let God know what you are feeling.

David seems to be lamenting the loss of Saul and his son, but I wonder if he is really lamenting the loss of relationship Saul had with God, with the Jewish people, and the personal relationship between Saul and David.

That is the saddest part of the story. We find no anger from David. We find David seemingly wondering what he has done to cause this reaction from Saul. The answer is that Saul has allowed his emotions to lead him down a path of destruction.

We can find the same thing happen in our first reading which is focused on the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Stephen attempts to lay out for his audience what they have missed that the Christians believed.

He ended his speech this way…

51 “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52 Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—53 you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”

He attempts to explain to them that they were not the first to miss God at work but they still could seek forgiveness. The reaction that is received is not rational thinking. They don’t pause to allow what Stephen is saying to sink in.

They don’t believe that there is any possibility that Stephen is right. Instead,immediately the emotions take over and they verbally attack him before he asks God to forgive them which leads to them choosing to stone him.

We should attempt to put God first, then our emotions, and allow this to lead to our thoughts. This is us acknowledging that our emotions impact our thoughts, but we should desire to always want God to be in the lead.

We find Stephen focused on God and caring for those that are being affected by their own decisions. He asks for God to forgive them. David seems to have a similar response.

He is more saddened by the unneeded loss of life than he is about the mistreatment that he has received. He desires that the people remember Saul for the good he did instead of for the way he had treated David.

Why should this matter to us? Why should we care about this story about people unwilling to control their emotions. Many of us many times have fallen into the same trap. We struggle with focusing on God and instead allow our emotions rule us.

We find ourselves lashing out at the world or internally playing the blame game and shaming ourselves for our failures. We have allowed ourselves to be impacted negatively due to putting our emotions before the will of God.

This is being lived out constantly on social media where Christians have become so focused on our human differences that they lash out against anyone who makes the choice to disagree with them.

I am sure that is none of you. It is important that we do what we can to put God first and let our emotions be behind him. After all, God created emotions, therefore he should be the one that we should allow to help us control them.

Allen in her book does not only state the problem but she also offers us a way to help us diagnose where are emotions are coming from in order to allow God to lead us in a positive direction instead of our emotions in a negative one.

She lists five steps for us to take. They are notice, name, feel, share, and choose. She begins with notice. A need to acknowledge that we are feeling something and that emotion is affecting our current mood or actions.

The second step is naming the emotion you noticed and discern why it has risen to the forefront. Noticing without figuring out the why leads to discomfort. It is when we are able to figure out the why that we can have a sense of relief.

Allen points out that we might notice something is off but instead of naming it we instead attempt to control it, cope with it, or conceal it. This leads to two outcomes, we become a robot attempting to live without emotion. For Star Trek people you become like Spock.

Or eventually our “evasive tactics” lead to a breakdown. A point where we can’t ignore them anymore. If this is you it is possible you may need professional help. You may need someone to walk you through naming what you are feeling.

(My case: anger. Why? Past events)

Now that we have named it we need to allow ourselves to feel it. Let it go, acknowledge it. Live into it but with the understanding that you are in control. Your will is the engine, and the emotion is being led by God through you.

Next, share it. It is important that it is someone that you can trust but through sharing what you are feeling you are not only giving the emotion to God, but you are releasing it to the world. You are no longer internalizing your emotion; you are giving it life outside of yourself.

Sharing will lead to healing. You may feel an actual weight removed from your soul. It is through releasing the weight of what we are feeling that can lead us towards healing from the emotion we are feeling.

Sharing can also help others believe it is OK to feel it. (Me sharing may help someone decide they can get help from God with their anger.)

The final step is to choose. The most important choice we make is to let God help us choose how to deal with the emotion we are feeling. We are not alone. God wants to walk along with us. Part of having God help us is to acknowledge that God has also felt our emotion.

Scripture shows us that Jesus at times was sad, mad, and glad and every emotion in between. Jesus was fully human and felt every emotion and lived through every emotion that we have felt. God has felt the emotion that we are currently feeling.

How we choose to deal with what we are feeling may mean giving it over to God. It may mean thanking God. It could mean asking for God to help us work through our emotion. We have to choose to allow God to be a part of the journey.

(Ways I dealt with my anger-When did I get angry?

Sporting events-I very seldom watch sporting events live.

Stressors-I can often acknowledge my anger and stop myself from lashing out.

God is with us through our emotions. We can allow him to help us to choose, not to allow for them to have a negative impact on the decisions we make.

Let us today decide that we are going to take steps to stop ourselves from having our emotions have a negative impact on those around us. We are going to have God help us become a person of love and compassion. We are going to become the person that God desires for us to be.

Let us pray…