The Importance of Understanding Our Emotions in Our Walk with God

In order to understand the importance of identifying our emotions, we first need to understand what emotion means. So let’s take a look at what the Bible says about emotion.

The word “emotion” is actually not found in the Bible, so we need to break it down and understand it in biblical categories through Scripture. The Bible is clear on the truth that human beings are embodied souls, which means that we are made of body and soul. From a biblical perspective, emotions are physical experiences (the bodily aspect) and statements of the heart (the soul/spiritual aspect). This means that:

Emotions can be merely physical and irrational. That’s why we can sometimes feel certain emotions for no apparent reason. For example, because of the complex influence of the body, the experience of depression is not necessarily caused by issues of the heart, which means that it is not always sin that is causing or driving someone’s depression; it could be merely physical. Sometimes we might just wake up in the morning feeling down or a bit depressed or very excited and happy though we haven’t done or thought of anything yet – we just wake up feeling that way. Sometimes emotions could be caused by some side effects of certain medications that we are taking as well – many medicines have this type of warning in their instructions.
Emotions can, and typically do, reflect the things on our heart. Emotions show up when we are responding or reacting to something, and they denote the things that we want, treasure, love or the things that we dislike or hate. In other words, emotions speak for our heart, revealing what we value, and our body physically conveys it. In such cases, the body is a channel through which the heart speaks. Even the absence of emotions doesn’t suggest that we are neutral, intelligent, rational or logical. Quite the contrary, it communicates our indifference and unwillingness to be involved, which also reveal our heart’s desires.
Emotions that reflect our heart’s desires are also experienced by us physically because we are embodied souls. For example, we could desire people’s approval or respect so badly that when someone doesn’t approve of or respect us, we could get angry at them, and that anger could be felt by us physically, e.g., our body’s muscles tense up, our heart rate accelerates, our blood pressure rises, our rate of breathing increases, our face may flush as increased blood flow enters our limbs, etc. And in some cases of depression, when we try to trace it back to the source, we may often find lots of unresolved anger that have been piled up over a long period of time in the person’s heart towards someone, towards themselves, or even towards God.

Most of us have probably had experiences which make us feel that emotions have the ability to control us. Like sometimes we get so angry at someone or something that we just lose our temper and do or say foolish things which deep in our heart we may know are wrong and sinful, but we tell ourselves and/or others, “I just can’t help it. The anger controls me. It is out of my control.” When life goes through big or sudden changes or difficulties, like when things get really heated or when we lose someone we love, reality shows us that we aren’t as rational as we might think, that we are emotional people – we are often driven by our emotions; we act out our emotions in various ways.

Well, we are not here to defend our foolishness in some emotional moments, nor to give excuses for what we have done wrong by putting the blame on our emotions, like when Adam sinned, he blamed Eve and God for his own choice to disobey God (Genesis 3:12). The truth is that our emotions guide us more than we think. When the passions of the heart are strong, it could feel overwhelming and it could be very hard for us to say “No” to our desires to act in a certain way in order to obtain what our heart desires. Our emotions also interpret life more than we think. When our emotions are very strong, it is likely that we are viewing life through a certain worldview, which could be biblical or unbiblical.

Learning to identify and understand our emotions/feelings is essential in our Christian walk before the Lord because it can help us know and understand ourselves better and in a more biblical way. On the one hand, it helps us to not confuse the bodily aspect of emotions with the spiritual aspect, and so not to condemn ourselves for sinning when it is not really sin, as well as to avoid neglecting the caring of our body. On the other hand, our emotions often do reveal our heart and worldview which would need to be examined carefully before the Lord, so that facing this type of fork on the road when we are tempted to turn away from God to chase after the things that our flesh desires, we would be able to see our heart’s desires and unbiblical worldview more clearly and to make the choice to turn to God, and respond in ways that are pleasing to God rather than pleasing to our flesh. It also helps us to think hard about the desires in our heart that are driving our emotions, to repent from our sin when appropriate, and to take our every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).

God warns us in Proverbs 4: 23, 26-27, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life….Ponder the path of your feet then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.” Identifying and understanding our emotions gives us the opportunity to keep our heart, to ponder the path of our feet, to not swerve to the right or to the left, and to turn our foot away from evil.

As we grow in identifying and understanding our emotions/feelings, we can grow in thinking of ourselves with sober judgment as God commands us in Romans 12:3, as well as growing in understanding others’ emotions with biblical wisdom and a soft heart, so that we could grow in spiritual maturity in loving God and loving others, which are the two greatest commandments that Jesus has given us (Matthew 22:36-40), teaching us to abide in Him and to live out the new life in grace.

May the Lord teach each of us His children to grow in the ability in knowing and understanding our emotions, to grow to be a safe person who can deal with our emotions and engage in productive communications with others in a calmer manner, with a soft heart full of compassion and biblical wisdom, to live a life that follows Christ and gives Him glory. May the Lord help us to look to Him for help when our emotions are high or intense, so that our eyes are not fixed on the challenging circumstances that we are facing, but solely on Jesus Christ who is our Lord and Savior and ever present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1).

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