The Gospel and My Emotions

I was first exposed to Christian counseling during my college years by proponents of a heavy-handed nouthetic counseling approach. I still love Jay Adam’s simple exposition of Romans 12, How To Overcome Evil. It was life changing for me at the time. But over time, I have become less and less comfortable with a methodology that I can figure out no better term right now to describe it than simply heavy-handed. So little grace, which is odd considering the theological background of most of the writers. But I learned (sadly) a good while back that those best able to articulate the doctrines of grace are often the worst at applying it.

I also read Larry Crabb’s Inside Out way back when. That left me uncomfortable too. Too much wiggly wobbly something or other. I’ve since enjoyed a few of his later books. I’m reading Marriage Builder and Shattered Dreams right now and am finding them quite insightful. He doesn’t always follow a clear train of thought, which frustrates my personality type. But he does in the later books reflect a life experience I can relate to--shattered hopes that instead of crushing us point us to the true source of our hope.

But today, I finished up a chapter entitled The Gospel and Our Emotions in Counsel from the Cross by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson. You can read the chapter here and buy the book here. Good, helpful, balanced, and biblical! I haven’t read that much on a Christian counseling perspective on emotions, but from what I’ve read, this is the best summary I’ve found. I took away some very helpful ideas. First, don’t ignore your emotions. They are important indicators. Our temptations are to sedate them through a variety of coping mechanisms, stamp them down and ignore them, or give in to them. Instead, use them. They are telling you something. Maybe it’s something about your health – your thyroid, for me it’s often low blood sugar associated with diabetes, or perhaps a legitimate chemical imbalance in your brain. More often, they are telling you something about your heart. So often in my own life, my emotions indicate my misplaced hopes. I want my husband or children to provide me with meaning and affirmation in a way that only my Father in heaven was intended to provide. I’m angry, discouraged, or depressed because they don’t do for me what they CAN'T do for me. But there is a hopeful, grace filled answer. I sure don’t need condemnation for my emotions. I need gospel grace enduring with me as I wrestle to see how they point me to my need for Christ and all He has permanently accomplished for me on the cross. Nobody can talk themselves out of their emotions. You can stamp them down for a while. But they will always erupt. You have to face them head on and deal with them. They mean something. They indicate something. And it’s ok to figure out what exactly spiritually that is.

I was actually a little nervous when I first encountered this chapter in Counsel from the Cross. The title scared me—it’s such a tightrope to handle this topic with careful precision from Scripture. But I ended the chapter quite encouraged, glad to hear someone succinctly summarize an approach I could embrace. Even more so, I am encouraged to be honest with myself concerning my own emotions and hopefully ready to be a better comforter to those struggling with their own.