Embrace Your Emotions

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Brian Mosley.
Our team here at RightNow Media loves serving the church.
We believe the mission of the church matters and that discipleship matters.
Whether you're watching this message alone or with your leadership team, we hope that it's an encouragement to you.
And in this session, Jennie Allen speaks about the importance of stewarding our emotions well.

(bright upbeat music)

Speaker 2:

I wanna show you my kids real quick, tell you a real quick story about one of them.
My daughter, Kate, when she was younger, about 10 years old, it was time to have the talk.
And so I take her, everybody's with me, right? I don't need to go any more PG than this?
So, I'm taking her to Sonic to have the talk and that felt as good a place as any.
And I drop it like a bomb. I just said it matter-of-factly.
This is how it goes, this is how babies are made, this is the deal.
And I said it just like that. God made the plan.
I think I did it better than just the facts, but basically that's how I did it.
And she started weeping.
And I took her to the mall.

(audience laughing)

And we shopped for two hours, and we're driving home, and we pull into the driveway and I'm thinking to myself, I didn't read enough books.
Like I'm gonna go read some more books and come back and try again.
And as I'm getting out of the car, my 10-year-old grabs me by the arm and says,
"Mom, I just wanna thank you for what you did for us three times."

(audience laughing)

And then, if you saw the picture of my family, obviously someone was adopted, she said,
"And I totally understand why we adopted Cooper."

(audience laughing)

So, today my daughter just got married.
And what I can tell you is that her view of that subject is very different than it was on that day.
And her view on that subject when she is 45 will be very different than it is at 21, 22.
And her view on that subject at 85 is gonna be very different than it is at 22 and certainly than it was at 10.
And this is what I wanna start with today because the thing we're gonna talk about tonight is similar to sex, it is our emotions.
And how they are similar is that God created them.
God built them. God has a plan for them.
But it feels like none of us know what to do with them.
And similar to the subject I just mentioned, it feels like we're making a mess of it everywhere.
There is a plan.
And my hope and prayer, and the reason I feel sober about this time is I believe many of you are shaping your towns and your states, your communities, your churches.
When I picture speaking to you, I picture the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that you directly lead and speak to on a regular basis.
And so when I speak to you, I feel like I'm speaking to all of them.
And in some cases this is an advocacy from all of them for all of them.
Because I don't think we've gotten this right, church.
So, we're gonna dig in, we're gonna look at a passage today.
It's a great one to break down, one of the more complicated passages in scripture, but literally the shortest.
Ready? "Jesus wept."

(audience laughing)

We are gonna look at that passage today.
We're gonna look at those two words and what they mean for us today.
Because when it comes to the subject of emotions, the church has largely responded to the world.
And today the world we know has made a complete mess of emotions.
The world has said that emotions are everything, that they are all that matter.
That if somebody feels like they don't love their husband anymore, they can sleep with someone else and they can leave their husband.
If somebody feels like they're attracted to somebody, they can follow that attraction to its end.
If somebody feels like they're different on the inside than they are on the outside, they can change it.
If somebody feels, we have watched the world take their feelings and make them a God.
Yeah, y'all are saying 'mhm' right now, wait till I tell you about the church first.
So, we can all agree on that.
So, let me just start by putting you at ease. I am not saying that this is the right way, okay?
But let me tell you what the church has said.
In reaction to that, the church has said emotions are not valuable.
Emotions are dangerous.
Emotions will get you into trouble.
Emotions can't be trusted.
The problem is, and here's the deep question, you little theologians, you, are emotions good or bad?
Are emotions neutral?
I'm gonna poll you right now. Are emotions bad?
Good, right answer.
But are emotions neutral? They can be used for good or bad.
Now you're stumped.
Let's look at the scriptures, because what you see throughout Genesis, let me actually do a fly-by before we get into John.
What you see when you look at the scriptures beginning in Genesis is that emotions cannot be bad because God feels them all.
God feels them all.
I wanna focus on four, joy, anger, sadness, and fear.
Those are the most familiar, and almost every emotion that you feel outside of that can be put in one of those four categories.
And before we look at this at how God feels, I want you to locate an emotion in yourself.
And some of you are like, I'm not very emotional.
Yes, you are. You just don't show it.
You are emotional because you were created by an emotional God who made you in his image.
You are emotional. You just don't show it.
And you maybe don't know it.
So, I want you to locate an emotion you felt in the last week, any emotion.
Negative would be better, but you know, just find one.
Any one. I want you to name it. I want you to locate it.
Do you have one that you felt strongly in the last week?
Everybody got one?
Raise your hand if you got one in your head?
Okay, now I want you to say it out loud together. You ready? Go.

(crowd vocalizing)

Wow, everybody's mad. That's the one I heard.

(audience laughing)

That's okay. We're gonna talk about it.
God got mad. Yes.
But we see his first emotion being joy.
When he creates, it is good.
He loves his creation. He is proud of it.
And you see joy.
God feels. God feels like crazy.
He feels happiness about everything that he created and disappointment when creation rebelled.
He feels anger at their continued rebellion.
And he feels delight when Abraham and David and others follow him.
And then he feels sadness as Israel keeps going their own way.
He feels grief.
And you see God express compassion towards humanity.
You see a deep love for humanity that he keeps running after them.
You see in the Book of Hosea that it's a radical love that he says, "I don't care how you behave. I'm coming after you. I love you. I'm compassionate towards you."
You see deep emotion towards his people.
And then the Lord says, as the Bible says, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but he is patient not wishing that anyone should perish, but that all should reach repentance."
There's a deep desire in his heart that is birthed out of love.
And then the radical love of God is exactly why Jesus came to Earth.
He came to Earth because of his love to demonstrate.
He came in the flesh and he came to bear witness to this idea that God was already looking for us.
He wanted us back.
And the prophet Isaiah refers to Jesus as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.
And before we see Jesus face the cross in the garden of Gethsemane, we actually get a glimpse, an intimate glimpse into God feeling fear.
And I'll be honest, when I was doing the research for this project, I was thinking, there's no way God could feel fear.
Because the other ones we see so clearly in scripture.
You see Jesus turning over tables. You see his anger.
But how could God feel fear when he knows how it ends?
But Jesus felt fear.
The Greek word there is that he was in agony.
It was 'agonía.'
And that word most often is translated into 'anxiety' or 'fear,' what Jesus felt before he died.
And then we know the Holy Spirit, God's spirit, is real feely.
He feels all kinds of things.
He feels grieved at us.
He actually, when we can't even form words to God, it says that on our behalf, he forms the words for us.
So, that means when you are crying and you're in the darkest night of the soul and your heart is breaking and you can't even talk to God, that the spirit is with you as a comforter, a counselor, and an intercessor, that he is taking the things you can't even name in your soul straight to the throne of God.
Yeah, he feels. God feels.
So, emotions can't be bad, emotions can't be sin.
Emotions can't be neutral.
Emotions have to be good because God feels them and God built them in us.
God built them in us and he made us to be emotional people.
Now, some of you are worried about this.
And I just wanna say that when I wrote this project, I thought of a name, it's called Untangle Your Emotions.
When I wrote this project, I actually thought of naming it $10,000 Worth of Counseling.

(audience laughing)

Just to make the men read it to save money.
Because some of you guys are like, I really don't need this talk.
And I'm gonna say anyone thinking that right now, you need this talk the most.
Because you, along with me, along with many others, have demonized emotions.
And when they show up, we judge them in our ourself, in our children, in our peers, in our parents, in our friends.
We judge them.
Because we don't know what to do with them because they're this wild mess.
I wanna show you the image.
When I started this project, this was the image in my head.
And graphic designers tried to make it better, but I liked my version better.
So, that's what we got.
Because that's how I feel.
Because when I think about this subject, that's how a lot of people feel.
Many of you feel this way.
Some of you have never let yourself feel this way because you think if I actually admit how crazy it is inside, how it's all coming out sideways, because guess what?
We conceal our emotions, we control our emotions, we cope with our emotions.
But none of us are that good at it, guys.
It all comes out somewhere, somehow, some way.
And I'm just saying, if you don't know if that's true for you, you just need to check with your spouse.

(audience laughing)

Because it comes out. It comes out and it pains people.
But I'm not even doing this for your people, although I think they will benefit.
I'm doing this for you.
I was a fixer.
I am a fixer. I'm very good at fixing things.
I write books trying to fix things. I literally am a fixer.
It's what I love to do. I'm not a feeler.
I know I'm a girl, I know I'm very passionate, but I don't actually like to feel anything negative.
I don't wanna feel sad. I don't wanna feel mad. I don't wanna feel scared.
So, I control and I cope and I conceal my emotions.
Actually, I don't conceal them. I just pretend they aren't there.
And I control them so much that I think I can think my way out of them.
I had a whole book called "Get Out of Your Head." It really did pretty well.
And I thought that was all you needed.
Till it's deeper than just, I'm not gonna think that anymore.
When something from your past comes up and comes up again and comes up again and all of a sudden it's not about what you're thinking, it's actually God's invitation to you to heal.
And so I began that journey two years ago.
I showed up at a counseling type thing, and I crossed my arms and I said,
"Hi, I'm gonna be vulnerable. I'm so excited."

(audience laughing)

And I did it.
I did it, y'all. I mean, I got an A+.
I was weeping, yelling.
I was mad at God, at all the, I let it all out.
I was so proud. I really did.
I showed up and I did the thing.
And this was big for me. And this was brave for me.
And then the people I love that were there began to say things like this.
"I don't think God would ever do that.
I don't think you should feel that way because God loves you."
They began to fix what I had just shared.
The fixer was getting fixed and it didn't feel good.
And so someone interrupted wisely and said,
"Listen, we're gonna build a set of rules when we're together in this little small group here.
We're not gonna respond with the words 'I think,' we're gonna respond with the words 'I feel.'
And so when Jennie shares what she just shared with you, I don't want you to say, 'I don't think God is like that.'
I want you to say what you feel when Jennie shares that."
And I said, "Yeah, that didn't feel good."
And then he turned it back to me again, he said, "Jennie, how did it make you feel?"
I said, "It made me feel judged.
It made me feel like you don't think I'm a strong Christian.
It made me feel like I'm weaker than all of you.
And you understand something about God that I don't understand.
And just candidly, I'm really mad, and I'm ticked and I feel angry."
And then, you know, you're like, you're good at this game.
And then they started to say, "That makes me feel sad.
Jennie, it makes me feel sad that you feel alone.
In this room, it makes me feel sad that you felt alone in your home.
It makes me feel sad."
And then someone said, "It makes me feel proud that you keep following God even though you've been wrestling hard with him."
They didn't fix anything. They just told me how they felt.
And my chest opened up and my shoulders dropped and I breathed a little deeper and something began to heal.

Jesus wept.
Jesus wept. I wanna give you a little context of that verse.
I know many of you know it. It's familiar to you.
Lazarus has just died.
They have warned him that he might, they have come to him and said,
"Hey, you need to come. Your friend is dying."
And he says something interesting.
He says, "He's gonna fall asleep, but don't worry, I'm gonna wake him up."
This is before he ever shows up on the scene.
So now three days later, he waits. It says he waits.
And then he shows up a few days later, and he comes in and he sees, first, he sees Martha.
And Martha is mad.
Martha is mad. And she's mad for a very good reason.
She's mad at God and Jesus because she knew that he could have saved his friend and her brother.
She knew. And so she's ticked.
And then Jesus responds with, "Take that, you fool. Like, I'm God." You know?
No, he doesn't.
You know what he does? He responds with a promise.
He responds with comfort.
He responds with a famous verse that many of us quote and forget the meaning and what he was doing in this moment.
"I'm the resurrection, the life. The one who believes in me will live. And even though they die, whoever lives by believing in me will never die."
He says, "Martha, I'm taking care of death.
I am taking care of death.
I know you're mad because you believe in me.
You're mad because you know I'm real.
You're mad because you know I could fix that."
He's not mad at her for being mad.
He's not judging her for being mad.
You know what he is doing instead?
He's saying, "I know, and trust me, I got you."
But he can handle it.
And then he walks in and he sees Mary.
And Mary is weeping.
Mary is brokenhearted.
"When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to him, 'Lord, come and see.'"
And this is where it falls. "Jesus wept."
Now, the reason these two words are so profound is because how would you have responded to Mary who's crying if you knew what you were about to do?
How would you have responded to Mary crying?
I'm gonna tell you how I would've responded.
"Mary, it's all good. I got you. I'm gonna go raise him from the dead, right now."
He knew he was gonna do it.
He'd already told people he was gonna do it.
He's not confused.
He's not crying because he thinks Lazarus is gonna stay dead.
Why is Jesus crying?
Now, I did a lot of research on this, and a lot of people say a lot of stupid stuff.
They literally just make it up.
They just make it up and they put it in a commentary.
It's unbelievable.
They say he's crying because of the future. He's gonna have to die.
I mean, maybe. Yeah. Okay.
It's really a stretch.
What's the most obvious reason why Jesus is crying?
Because Mary's crying.

Mourn with those who mourn.
Mourn with those who mourn.
This is the greatest marriage advice ever.
This is the greatest parenting advice ever.
But let me take it a little deeper, because I did the work scientifically, not just theologically.
Scientifically, guess what the only thing is that repairs neurons that have been separated, neurological pathways that have been broken, because of trauma?
The only thing?
There's one thing that actually repairs neurological pathways.
They literally find themselves, I've seen a video about it, it's the cutest thing you've ever seen.
There's little black, squiggly lines and they're working so hard and they find each other again.
Guess how that happens?
One way.
Mourning with those who mourn.
When someone enters the pain of someone else and is with them so that they're not alone in their pain, their brains heal.
Fixing their problems, changing the circumstances, getting them out of trouble does not heal their brain.
Does not heal their heart. Does not heal their brain.
Because the ultimate longing of humanity is to know that it is not alone.
As Kurt Thompson says, "We all come into the world looking for someone looking for us."
Because ultimately we have a God that came looking for us.
When you see the world and emotions through this grid, all of a sudden all these passages that have felt confusing make sense.
All these passages, like "Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted."
Why? Because the desperate people get God.
And so there are parts of all of us that need to be healed.
In every single one of us, that is true.
There are traumas, little micro traumas or big traumas.
There are little and big traumas.
And what Jesus is saying is, "I'm gonna meet you in your suffering.
I'm gonna make myself known in your suffering."
Can he make himself known in joy? Absolutely.
He can.
But usually we're just so excited about the thing making us joyful that we don't actually need and cling to God.
On bathroom floors when our world falls apart, we cry out, "God, help."
That's when we want God the most.
And that is why blessed are those who mourn because God is near to the brokenhearted.
And so if we continue to demonize these emotions, if we continue to say, "Anger and fear and sadness are bad, don't feel them," let me tell you how well that's working, team.
It's not.
It's not working.
There's more anxiety, depression, isolation, loneliness than there's ever been.
And we hold the answer.
We hold the answer. But we have to start with the need.
And the need of the world right now is comfort.
The world is craving comfort.
It's why I'm watching things like Auburn when I go and speak and all of a sudden we're baptizing 200 students in a lake down the street in really dirty water.
It was really, I was trusting Jesus.

(audience laughing)

But hundreds of students till midnight we were baptizing.
We could have kept going. Why?
Every person I baptized, we asked for their story.
We would, you know, make sure they were saved.
You know, we were doing the work.
And so every person, I heard their story.
I heard why they were there.
I heard why they were getting baptized, guys, and it wasn't because, "Oh, I never got baptized."
That happened one time out of hundreds.
You know what they said?
"I wanna be clean.
I wanna be right with God.
I wanna follow God because I'm hopeless and I'm tired of living hopeless."
The world is craving God because they're craving hope.
Because they're craving comfort.
The world has gotten dark.
I don't know if you knew that.
Just mentioning it as a statement.
If your world hasn't, yay.
But most of the world has gotten really dark.
And so when you say to someone, "I feel sad," guess what?
It resonates, because the world is sad.
But when you say "I need to be okay and I need to be joyful because that's what faith looks like, because that's what following God looks like," all of a sudden there's a disconnect from everybody you're serving and everyone you love in your home and in your churches.
Because they're going, "I look out the window and it looks really jacked up.
Do you feel angry at the injustice?
Do you feel sad at what I'm watching?
Do you feel sad for me, what I'm facing?"
And if we as people have pushed down every emotion because we can't deal with our own, how are we supposed to ever help heal others?
There is a plan for our emotions, a beautiful plan.
And we don't have to be afraid of them.
We just have to know how to steward them.
So, the plan of God for your emotions is this.
It's another stick figure.
It's connection with God and connection with people.
Have you ever been across from someone, even recently, maybe even on this little gathering that y'all been having, have you ever been across from someone and they started to cry?
What do you feel when someone starts to cry?
What do you feel? Almost always?
Oh, sad. And do you feel glad they shared it with you?
You feel honored.
When someone cries with me, I literally feel like the luckiest person in the world.
But guess what, everybody, almost everybody that cries with me and I do it too, says to me within minutes of wiping away tears, "I'm sorry."
Why do we do that?
Because we've been taught to demonize our emotions.
The next time you are crying to somebody, I want you to be like, to that other person, I want you to look at them and go, "I'm gifting you this. You're welcome."

(audience laughing)

Because that's what you're doing.
You're gifting them the opportunity for them to cry right back.
Some of you haven't cried in years.
Some of you, as I talk about this, it feels like I'm pushing you up to a cliff and you're looking down and it's a dark abyss.
And you go, "If I go here, if I feel the things that I feel, if I feel the anger at my elders and the way they've treated us, if I feel the sadness about my child that is not walking with God, if I feel that, I'm gonna fall into this pit and I may not be able to get out."
And I just wanna describe this abyss that you're afraid of real quick.
It's dark and it is scary.
And yes, I'm pushing you, and trying to push you over the edge, but let me tell you, there are ropes and handles, and God is in it.
And it is not dark. It looks dark right now, I know.
But when you fall in, guess what happens?
You feel closer to God than you've ever felt. Guess why?
Because emotions actually make our best relationships.
Have you ever seen a movie with no emotions?
It's really boring. It's called a bad documentary. You don't wanna watch it.

(audience laughing)

A life without emotions is kind of the same.
Relationships without emotions? Yeah, same.
Let me give you some examples of how this changes everything.
You get mad at God? He can handle it.
You actually feel closer.
You cry with your partner about disappointments that you think you don't even want her to know about.
And guess what she does?
She comforts you and wants to go kill somebody in a dark alley.
It's wonderful.

(audience laughing)

It feels good.
You worship and you cry again for the first time, maybe since college, because you haven't felt God in a long time.
And I'm not saying we have to have emotions to connect with God and people, there's lots of ways we do.
But I'm saying it's gonna dry up fast if you never do.
This is how we were built.
And these feelings, they're gifts.
They're beckoning a relationship.
It's a whisper.
When you feel sad, this is what I do now, when I feel sad about something, I'll ask myself, I'll say, okay, what am I sad about?
And sometimes it's not the thing I would expect right away.
Sometimes it's something completely different.
What are you sad about?
And then I say it out loud to somebody I love.
Say it out loud to God.
Say, this is what I'm feeling today.
And you know what happens when I say it out loud?
I feel better.
I feel less alone.
I feel happier.
And the longing of our hearts is connection.
And connection best happens when we share vulnerably with each other.
And what I pray, as I was praying for all of you today, what I was praying is that there would be churches, many, many sermons preached about this.
That there would be children's ministries that kids would get feeling charts and they would be able to notice their feelings.
Not so they are controlled by them. But guess what?
Let me tell you why the world is over here confused about them and making them their master, because they never learned what to do with them either.
So, let's be the teachers.
Let's teach them how to notice them and name them, that God built them and loves them and that they serve great purposes as a beautiful gift.
Let's notice them and name them and let's be familiar with them so that we can be whole and healthy and excellent.
And so the way, the team is gonna come up and play, and the way that we're gonna do this today is we're going to feel something together right now.
We're gonna feel something together.
I want you to think about that emotion that you named earlier.
I want you to close your eyes.
I want you to think about that emotion that you were feeling earlier.
And I want you to imagine that you're in a place that you love.
I want you to imagine a great place, somewhere that you love going.
And I want you to imagine that you're with God and that Jesus is sitting right across from you.
And I want you to tell him about that feeling.
Just tell him what you felt.
If you were mad, I want you to tell him.
If you were mad at him, I want you to tell him.
If you were sad, if you were afraid, whatever it was, I want you to tell him.
And now I want you to picture his face toward that.
What does he feel? How is he looking at you?
What does he want for you?
Some of you, this is second nature, this talk.
You're just saying amen the whole time and you already live this way.
But I bet most of you are like me and this is uncomfortable and scary.
But in that abyss is more of God.
And in that abyss is more of you.
And in that abyss is healing.
And right now it looks dark and it feels scary to go in it.
But I'm telling you, when you get past the dark part, it is everything that your soul is craving.
It is that deeper connection with God.
It is that marriage that you've wanted and wondered why does it feel so hard?
It is that relationship with your kids that you haven't had the capacity to have because you've had to protect yourself.
You've had to protect against your anger and your fear.
And all of a sudden when you stop protecting against it, yeah, it comes out.
Yeah, it may even come out wrong, but Jesus died for that.
And Jesus is enough for it.
It says that.
In Hebrews, it says, that our high priest is empathetic to our weakness.
That he empathizes in every way with our weakness.
And yet he does not sin.
And the way that our emotions don't lead us to sin, because we all know that it can, is that it leads us to God instead.
And when you take sadness to God and when you take fear to God and when you take anger to God, he can handle it.
In fact, he delights in it.
If we believe that the way of a Christian is to be in relationship with God, then this is how we relate.
We tell him everything.
And there's grace for all the ways, different ways we show it.
I'm not even talking about how we show it.
I'm talking about the insides of you.
These are gifts.
And God delights in managing and walking through them with us.

(bright upbeat music)

Speaker 1:

Jennie's challenge for us to see our emotions as gifts to be stewarded is as relevant as it's ever been.
Take a moment and pray and ask God to help you see your emotions as a gift and ask him to help you steward those well.

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