“O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Be merciful t me, Lord, for I am faint; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish. How long, O Lord, how long?” Psalm 6:1 – 3
The above words are the beginning of Psalm 6 that will end with the Psalmist offering their praise to God because God did hear his prayer of anguish. This Psalm is typically attributed to David, and it is considered a penitential Psalm. A Psalm where the author pours out their heart to God and in the end, they acknowledge God’s grace and mercy towards them in some form.
One of the great things about the Psalms is they teach us we can bring all our emotions to God. And as human beings we can have some pretty big emotions and we don’t always know what to do with them. We can get overwhelmed if we try to deal with them on our own. Although what we tend to do is stuff them. We become more like the proverbial ostrich and stick our head in the sand thinking if we ignore the feelings long enough, they will go away. News flash: They don’t. We will end up dealing with them at some point in time. They also tend to surface when it is the most inconvenient time.
So, learning the lessons of the Psalms is important. We need to take all we are feeling to God. We need to unburden ourselves and sometimes we also need to seek out counseling to help us as we navigate all we are feeling and what is behind all we are feeling. And sometimes the “feels” are tied to experiences from our past that we ignored then and now we can no longer ignore them.
But sometimes, for Christians, our struggles are tied to the simple fact that we are holding onto some bad theologies that while we may like them are not scriptural. I have written in the past about some of the beliefs we hold that are not truths found in scripture but a truth that has been perverted because we like how it sounds the way we tell it. The snake did this to Eve in the garden when he was trying to get her to eat the forbidden fruit. The snake twisted God’s words and Eve fell for it. So, we may want to rethink holding on to those perverted truths we like so much. They will get us into trouble.
We do the same in our own heads. Our thoughts get us into all manner of trouble because we think things that sound good to us but are not based in any kind of fact are true. We have not done our due diligence and investigated facts or if it involves an individual, we haven’t talked to the person we might feel is causing the issues in our life.
All this to say it is ok to talk to God about all we are feeling. It is ok to let God know you think life is unfair right now. It is ok to yell at God and be mad at God as long as you are talking TO God and have not fallen into the trap of talking ABOUT God. There is a big difference between the two. When we get to where we are talking about God then we have put God into an abstract idea and not the personal, loving God who created us in God’s own image and loves us deeply and wants what is best for us…and sometimes what is best can be found through the difficulties we experience in life.
Let me be clear….God did not send those difficulties. God is not the author of our hardships…however, God will use what happens and turn it to the good in time. And that happens when we open our hearts to what God is doing in our lives and share with God all we are feeling. God already knows all the good, the bad, and the ugly of our lives…God just wants us to talk about it all to God.
Here’s the thing: When we feel “off” it is an indicator light on our dashboard of life that is telling us we need help to get through this chapter we are experiencing and getting help is perfectly ok.
Peace,
Pastor Beth
Beth's Blog 