Pour out your emotions
by Roger Pook
One of God's greatest blessings to mankind is our ability to appreciate the wonder of his creation. It's just so … well, beautiful! Probably most of us have experienced the amazing sensation of gazing into a starry night and just looking at the sky. It drives you to praise and worship quicker than almost anything else.
You can get the same result from seeing a wonderful landscape, a brilliant sunset, or the intricacies of a leaf or small creature through a magnifying glass. Oh God, this is amazing! You made it all so well!
The experience is both spiritual and emotional. It feels so good, and does us good, because it’s in obedience to God's command to pour our emotions back to our heavenly Father who gave them in the first place.
If we can get into this habit of expressing our wonder and joy to God, then it becomes much easier to pour out to him the feelings that are not so pleasant as well. This is part of the same command, and leads to healing.
In Psalm 69, David pours out to God the feelings that are overwhelming him, and goes on to tell God exactly what he thinks about his enemies. To paraphrase verses 22-28: ‘I want their food to poison them, I want them to go blind and crippled, I want their family to die out, and I want them to go to hell!’ Now that's honesty for you. That's real emotions. He's not cursing his enemies(the psalm is addressed to God), he's telling God exactly what he thinks!
The wonderful result of this is in verses 30-36, where David is free to sing a beautiful hymn of praise. He's healed!
So how can we praise God in times of trouble? By first pouring out to him, in all honesty, what we are really feeling. This brings healing, cleansing, and enables the Spirit to flow through us. Try it. It works.
Prayer: Dear Lord, You already know my innermost feelings, I cannot hide them from you. So help me to be honest with you about how I feel, so that you can heal the pain and show me how to respond in a godly way to those who have hurt me. In Jesus' name, Amen
Roger Pook For 21 years Roger Pook and his wife Christine served in Central and Eastern Europe, based in Hungary at the Úr Rétje centre of Ellel Ministries. From there they travelled and ministered across the length and breadth of the former communist world. In 2018 Roger retired as Regional Director and they now live back in the UK, where Roger still serves on the Executive Leadership and as a trustee of The Christian Trust. They still travel for the Kingdom!
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