Elsa’s School Of Emotions

I’m afraid that followers of Jesus are being discipled in the Elsa school of emotions rather than the David school.

When I first saw Frozen way back at Thanksgiving of 2013, the song “Let it Go” got stuck in my head. It makes perfect sense why it was an overnight sensation that was parodied and referenced and cashed in on a billion times. The music is catchy and the lyrics describe a generation.

So many followers of Jesus grew up in conceal, don’t feel environments. Maybe they were told to go to their rooms so they could get it together and not scare away the house guests. Maybe they were told that men don’t cry. Maybe they were told that following Jesus means counting it all joy when you face trials and the application of that truth meant being happy all the time and not acknowledging other pains. I don’t know exactly what it looked like for you. But maybe you can relate to the above statements.

So many followers of Jesus attend conceal, don’t feel churches. With K-Love bumping too and from church, the meet and greet time is full of plastered smiles and trite proclamations of how good one’s week was. We get a quick little Bible lesson that is nothing more than the American Dream in a choir robe. You depressed? Well, you’re welcome here but we’re gonna wonder what’s wrong with you and tell you to just go to a counselor. You doubting God? Well, you’re welcome here but we’re gonna wonder why you don’t believe Scripture and then tell you to just go to a counselor. You angry at God? Well, you’re welcome here but we’re gonna wonder if you’re actually a Christian and then tell you to just go to a counselor.

Don’t worry. Be Happy.

Hakuna Matata.

Here’s the reality though.

That’s an incomplete view of emotions and an incomplete application of Scripture.

Life is hard. But God is good.

You ever read the Psalms?

All over the place, David shares the pains and difficulties he is going through.

One in particular always stands out to me.

Psalm 6.

I want you to picture David in your Sunday School class (or life group or connect group or grow group or discipleship group or whatever cool way your church says “Sunday School”).

You guys are making small talk and sharing about your week and you ask David how he’s been doing. What was he up to this weekend?

I am weary with my moaning;
    every night I flood my bed with tears;
    I drench my couch with my weeping.
My eye wastes away because of grief;
    it grows weak because of all my foes. – Psalm 6:6-7

Uhhhhh. *Slowly moves chair away from David and tries to have a conversation with someone else*

He would probably be welcome in your class still, but you’d think he was emotionally unstable at best and off his rocker at worst.

But y’all, that is what life is like! Sometimes life is really hard. If your life is all sunshine and butterflies every moment, I would argue you’ve got the American Dream in a choir robe and your life is more about Him blessing you than you serving and telling others about Him.

Elsa is not being Biblical with her emotions at all when she says conceal, don’t feel.

Yet, Elsa is not being Biblical when she reaches the lyrical conclusion of her transformation.

Saying Let it Go to all the stress one is feeling and emotions that come with living in a broken world is not the move.

Unfortunately again, I think a lot of modern followers of Jesus are being discipled by Elsa.

Men don’t cry.

Being strong is about not letting any of these *toxic* people around me bother me.

I believe God has a plan, so I will live with joy and not let things get me down.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that’s not the way of Christ.

Emotions can absolutely dominate you and cause issues. But shoving them down or escaping them with golf or alcohol or Netflix or your hobby of choice likely causes more.

I am the champ of shoving down emotions and then volcanoing on people I care about at the slightest provocation.

So what do we do with our emotions?

Let’s go back to Psalm 6.

Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
    for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my plea;
    the Lord accepts my prayer. – Psalm 6:8-9

Prayer. David was honest about his emotions and then took them to God in prayer. Prayer doesn’t always change one’s circumstances. But it always changes one’s perspective.

My journals need to be burned when I die. They are raw and real and are full of my emotions about a billion different issues. But as I write, God fills my mind with Scripture and I feel my perspective and outlook changing.

It’s interesting to me that wearing my emotions on my sleeve certainly impacts my relationships. Some think I’m weak. Some think I’m dramatic. Some think I need to trust God more. Some think I’m annoying.

There’s some truth to all of the above.

But at the end of the day, I’d much rather live in a way that the man after God’s own heart modeled.

I want to feel my emotions.

I want to make them known.

I don’t want to shove them down.

I don’t want to be dominated by them.

I want to take them to Jesus.

And as I do, I want to teach others to do the same.

In His Name,

Nate Roach

What’s On Your Mind?

My mind races almost all the time. There are normally a dozen thought processes running through my head from moment to moment. It’s the way I’m wired.

It’s become such a part of me that my wife knows I’m lying anytime I answer ‘nothing’ when she asks me what I’m thinking about.

From the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep my mind is on the run.

So I’ve striven to live a life of meditation.

You see, the Biblical view of meditation is the process of filling your mind. That’s what it means to meditate.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. – Psalm 1:1-2

Oh how I desire to be that man.

The beautiful part of Psalm 1 is that it opens our eyes to the reality that happiness is found when we delight ourselves in meditating on God’s Word (v. 1).

Don’t you want to be happy? I certainly do. I want a life full of happiness that is grounded in the work of Christ and the beauty of His Word. I want to wake up excited to take on the day ahead, and that’s not always the case.

A lot of days I wake up and I’m just trying to summon the strength to get going.

That’s not God’s design for us.

He doesn’t want to produce flippant, fickle, ungrounded men and women who don’t acknowledge the realities of a Genesis 3 world. But at the same time He desires for His people to be the happiest of people.

Happiness isn’t found in mindless scrolling of social media. Happiness isn’t found in filling our minds with the latest Covid conspiracy theories, anecdotal articles that focus on self-help, or angry editorials that idolize our nation and our political party. Happiness is found in filling our minds with God’s Word.

Psalm 1 differentiates between the counsel of this world we reside in and the counsel of His Law. The opening verse encouraged us to avoid the counsel of the wicked, the sinner, and the scoffer.

How much of what I fill my mind with falls under that?

Instead, we are told by God to fill our minds with His Word. Day and night. If you instinctively go for your phone in moments of waiting, utilize that. When you’re in line at the grocery store. When you’re brushing your teeth. When you’re waiting for a few minutes before a meeting. When you’re waiting a few minutes for your spouse to get home. When you’re in those spaces where you grab your phone, go to your Bible app. Meditate. I think you could fill your mind with so much more Scripture than you might think if you intentionally stole those moments of waiting and instead of checking Instagram you read some Scripture.

Day and night.

Meditate.

Your time in God’s Word should not be casual and flippant. It should be voracious. We should be hungry for more of it, for it helps us commune with the Trinitarian God we love.

Meditation involves taking the Word seriously by our determining to make use of more than a casual and occasional reading of the Bible. – Alton McEachern

Do we take the Word seriously?

I don’t.

It’s much more easy and convenient to fill my mind with mindless stuff instead of filling it with Scripture.

May we grow to be happy men and women who passionately pursue a deep study of the Scriptures.

In His Name,

Nate Roach