Our emotions are given to us by God. The spectrum our emotions cover is incredible.

We may be completely overjoyed that expressive words pour out of us, or we may be so crushed with despair that words fail us. Most days we won’t find ourselves at those extremes. Somewhere in the middle is where we live. Depending on our personalities and circumstances we may deal with our emotions in different ways. Emotions are powerful, they can give us hope or they can deflate us.

It’s not healthy to be controlled by our emotions however it may be just as bad to ignore our emotions. This is all especially true when we are praying.

Never let your emotions keep you from praying. If you are so far down that you can’t express yourself, the Bible promises in Romans 8:26 that the Holy Spirit will help you. On the other hand, never let the fact that you feel so good keep you from giving thanks to God for all you are experiencing.

For centuries many churches and have ignored emotions as trivial and not important. While other groups of churches seem to be so caught up with emotional awareness that it gets falsely identified as super spiritual. There is no need to land on either of these extremes.

God gave emotions to us, to help us express ourselves, to empathize with others and to grow closer to Him. No matter what emotions you are experiencing at the time, prayer is the best way to express them.

Looking through the scripture, you may be surprised. Many of our heroes expressed some uncomfortable emotions in their prayers. Consider these expressions that can be found in scripture. All of them are not necessarily emotions, but you may understand what they were feeling at the time.

Anger, joy, doubt, anticipation, worry, guilt, thankfulness, confusion, confidence, fear and faith all of these are found in prayers, poems and songs throughout the old and new testaments.

Don’t let your emotions get the better of you but don’t attempt to hide them from your Father either. Express them honestly to a God who not only understands them but gave you the ability to feel all of them.

No matter what you feel at this very moment, there is a loving God who wants to hear it and experience it with you.

Written by Tom Wise © Finding Wonder 2013