Dale Johnson: Today, I’m joined on the podcast by Aliza Hawkins. Aliza is an ACBC certified counselor. She’s a member at Lighthouse Church in Torrance, California. She’s been counseling for several years there, and we’re excited to have her with us. She’s also been married for six years and has two lovely children. She’s going to help us today think biblically about feelings. Aliza, welcome to the podcast.
Aliza Hawkins: Thank you for having me.
Dale Johnson: As we think about the issue of human emotions, human emotions are raw things and very real things. Sometimes, we often wonder, “Why do I have these emotions? I don’t like them,” and we wonder, “Are these emotions good things or bad things and why?”
Aliza Hawkins: That’s such a good question. For myself, sometimes emotions just make life so messy, and it makes it more difficult to live for the Lord and to love people well. Emotions so often seem to get in the way of that, but I think it’s helpful to know that God created emotions. He created them to be a blessing in our life and a way that we can experience humanity in a colorful way, in a way that is beautiful and profound. We can think about any close relationship—marriage or a child-parent relationship—and we think how awful it would be if we couldn’t experience emotion. So we see that emotions were created to be good, but we also recognize that we are living post-fall-into-sin, and so if our hearts are wicked (as Jeremiah 17 says), we realize that the emotions and feelings that flow from that heart are tainted by sin.
Because they’re tainted by sin it changes. Originally we could trust those feelings to be true, to be right, but now they’re flowing from this wicked heart. We realize that our feelings can’t be trusted. What really comes into play in real life is that, so often, we allow our feelings to control us. However we feel dictates what we do and oftentimes can dictate what we think is real and what is not real. When we realize that emotions are tainted by sin, we realize that we cannot trust those feelings. We have to be really careful about our emotions and feelings controlling us in the sense of being this powerful driving force in our life for how we think and what we do. So yes, emotions were created good, but because we’re post-fall-into-sin, it’s important that we realize they also can’t be trusted.
Dale Johnson: It’s such an important point that you’re making about the issue of trust. Often we trust our feelings as if it’s our identity and it makes us who we are, and it describes the beings that we are. When in reality, what you’re describing is just simply responses. Sometimes, emotions are very good and healthy, and sometimes, they’re wrong responses. So the question then comes, if we are beings that have emotions and those emotions even by God’s design can be good and healthy (depending upon how we respond) how do we keep from those types of emotions controlling us? How do we improve those emotions, biblically speaking?
Aliza Hawkins: That’s such a good question and I think this is where so many of us live on a daily basis. We’re constantly trying to balance emotions with actions, and this comes up in counseling all the time. I work with so many different women, and emotions are this huge, powerful, controlling force in their life. What we do is look at this: Do emotions have the power to control us? Is that true or not true, biblically?
It’s really helpful to start with the gospel. The gospel, with all of counseling, with everything, changes everything. If God isn’t real, if Jesus didn’t die on the cross for our sins, if he didn’t rise again, then yes, we are powerless against our hearts’ desires. We are powerless against the emotions that flow from that wicked heart. But because of Christ and because of the work on the cross, and because of the freedom that we have from sin, because we are a new creature, because we are made new in Christ, we are then able to resist, and we don’t have to be controlled by emotions.
One of my favorite passages on this is Genesis 4:3-8. Everybody knows the story of Cain and Abel. That’s basic, my four-year-old knows that story, right? Cain wanted God to prove his blessing, and God didn’t. God’s response to him says a lot about feelings and how we think about that. Cain is angry. He wanted something that he didn’t get, and God responds to him and He says, “Cain, why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen?” He asked him this question, “Why are you angry?” God obviously knows why, right? He knows everything, but He wants Cain to examine where those feelings are coming from. What is it in his heart that he’s wanting and not getting?
Then he gives him two options. He says, “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?” In that, he’s saying, “If you do what’s right, you will feel better.” But then the other option is this: He says, “If you do not do well, sin’s desire is for you, but you must master it.” Sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you. But you must master it. We see that God’s giving him two clear options.
The truth that is so helpful from that passage is that we see that feelings are a result of our choices, not that our choices should be made based on how we feel. This is where we miss it. A lot of the times we make our choices, we think and act based on how we feel. I feel scared, so I do this. I feel sad, so I do this. I feel angry, so I do this. This is what our society is teaching us: to live based on how you feel, and that’s the way to a good life. “Follow your heart.” “The heart wants what the heart wants.” Pretty much anything you’re reading or watching has this mentality that you have to do what feels good. You have to do what feels right to have the life that you want to have.
That’s why our standard of truth is so important. It can’t be feelings, that can’t be what people are telling us about feelings, but it has to be Scripture. Scripture is the ultimate source of truth, and that’s what we line everything up against. That’s how we’re able to realize that, because of the gospel, we are not powerless against emotions. We don’t have to choose what’s wrong because we have a new heart and we are able then to choose what’s right. Even when it’s difficult, even when we are struggling emotionally, we are still able to choose what’s right.
Dale Johnson: As you described, emotions aren’t something that have to control us. We’re giving ourselves to those emotions when we allow them to control us. The Lord has given us, through His Spirit, the ability to respond appropriately emotionally in different situations. We know good feelings that we strive after too much can actually become addictive in so many ways, or we get saturated by bad feelings and we find ourselves not being able to look up in any direction and think that there’s hope. As we think about some of those feelings, some of the dominant feelings that we would have whether they be good or bad, what are some practical steps? Let’s say a lady walks into your office and she’s giving the testimony that her emotions have overcome her. She doesn’t know how to sort them out, how to think through them. They’re dominating her life. Walk us through some practical steps that we should take to have emotions that glorify God.
Aliza Hawkins: You’re talking about a hypothetical, but this is really my everyday life. This is my counseling, and all humans struggle with emotions being too strong, too powerful of a force in their life. It’s easy to do that, and there are so many times where it feels like we’re powerless against emotion. That feels true. But it’s important to remember: is that really true? We have to think about what is biblically true.
No one comes to counseling because they have too much positive emotion. “I’m just so happy and I just feel so joyful, and I’m so content!” It’s the negative emotions that people come for and that’s what can oftentimes overtake us, destroy our spirit, lead to hopelessness and despair. What’s so helpful in Scripture is that we see when we are experiencing grief, when we’re suffering a loss and we experienced this deep sadness that comes with that, Scripture is so clear that we don’t have to minimize that pain, that emotional darkness.
Oftentimes, that’s what we try to do to be in control. We simply try to take control of our emotions by pretending they’re not that bad and by minimizing that to make us feel just a little bit stronger, a little bit safer. But there’s no God in that. That’s us trying to be in control and that’s the opposite of the biblical model of lamenting and being honest before God about the dark place that our emotions can be and the sadness that we can feel.
One of my favorite passages is Lamentations 3:17-26 because the author allows himself in the language to share how he’s in this deep emotional darkness. He says, “I have forgotten happiness.” He says, “My strength has perished and so has my hope from the Lord.” He’s feeling weak. He’s not at peace, he’s in turmoil. He’s been experiencing all this negative emotion. He even says that his hope from the Lord has died. His hope has perished, but that’s not where he stops.
Belonging to and knowing God changes everything. Without God, we are powerless to come from that emotional darkness. There is no hope without God. But this is what he says, “But this I recall to my mind; therefore, I have hope. That the Lord’s loving-kindnesses indeed never cease. His mercies are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” He comes from that place where he is honest, and he is real, and he is vulnerable with God about his despair and his hopelessness. But then he recalls to mind the truth about God and he finds hope again.
One of the greatest blessings as a biblical counselor is to be able to give that hope, to teach: This is who God is and belonging to him and living for him is a good life. It’s a life of hope and joy and peace. Where there once was anxiety, weakness, turmoil, and sadness, God changes all of that. We’re humans, and we suffer. We’re living post-fall, so we suffer from our own sin and we suffer because we live in a fallen world. Life is hard and the emotions that we experience from that hard life don’t have the power to steal away our hope, and that’s huge for us.
This is how we evangelize to a hurting world, and this is really key. With feelings of grief and sadness from hard times, what’s the key is not minimizing them and allowing yourself to feel, but not stopping there. “This I recall to my mind; therefore, I have hope.” I’m coming back to the Lord and allowing who God is to change how we experience life and how we get through those dark times.
But if we’re being honest, our day-to-day struggle with negative emotion is oftentimes coming from our own sin. It’s coming from that wicked heart and we want something that we’re not getting. We’re worshipping something other than God, and because that’s where we are, if our feelings flow from our choices, then we realize that the choice to live for myself over living for God will lead to negative emotion. It’s really helpful to take a step back.
When I’m experiencing a negative emotion, most of the time for me, it’s fear. I’ve had a lifelong struggle with fear and anxiety. This is something that I have fought through for many years and I’m still fighting through. When I’m experiencing a negative emotion, I’ll stop and say, “Why are you fearful?” That’s what God is asking, “Why are you angry?” Why am I fearful? What am I really worshipping in this moment? What do I feel like I need to have to be okay? Then I realize it’s not God. What am I loving? It’s safety. It’s comfort. It’s being loved. It’s these other things that aren’t bad things in and of themselves, but they’ve become idols in my life, in my heart.
You get to the heart, and then you line that up. What is true? I come back to the gospel. What is true about me? I’m not a slave to sin. I’m not a slave to my heart’s desires. I remind myself who God is. I’ll go through Scripture and in the beginning, when I was first fighting my fear and trying to do what’s right, I had all my Scriptures written out on note cards. I’d have to review them all day. I have to review them when I’m feeling that overwhelming emotion and I think I have to sin, I have to run, I have to make it better, I have to do something to take control and protect myself. But now, over the years, those Scriptures have become a part of me. They’re written on my heart. They’re part of who I am. I can run through those Scriptures: “But as for me the nearness of God is my good.”
A prayer of mine for many years has been that, like David, I could say, “I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.” It’s the truth of Scripture that I realized that I am not powerless against my fear. I’m not powerless against emotion because of the gospel. We come to that place and we say, “What is it that I’m worshipping other than God?” Then we remind ourself who God is. Is He really enough? Is He really better? We have to get to this place where we can pray and we can honestly say, “Jesus, you’re worth more to me than this.” It’s from that place then that we have the courage and the motivation to choose what’s right, even when it’s difficult.
That’s where we come to this point where we say, “I’m going to live based on what is true, not on what feels true.” Just because something feels right doesn’t mean it is. Just because something feels true doesn’t mean it is. I have to come back to Scripture and say, “What is true?” God is the only reason that we are not powerless against emotion. What’s really helpful on a practical note is looking to the heart, coming from that place of being honest about your sin, being honest about those emotional, dark feelings that you’re having, and then saying, “I’m going to choose to live for God because He’s worth more to me than anything else.”
That’s what we see all over Scripture in the Psalms and Proverbs: A life of wisdom. A life of righteousness is a good life. It’s the best life, and it’s coming to this place where you say, “Jesus is better, so I’m going to choose to do what’s right. I’m going to live my life as an act of worship.” It’s in that moment that you’re set free from the power of emotion. Where once you felt like emotion had you powerless against how you felt, you couldn’t do what’s right because of how you’re feeling, now you’ve realized that’s simply not true. Because of the gospel, that’s not true. Then you’re able to choose righteousness where you once would have only chosen sin.
That’s the place where I’m constantly trying to help my counselees get to that point where they have true victory over sin, where they realize that just because this feels true, it’s not. Christ becomes a foundation, Christ becomes their courage and their hope, and they’re able to change, not just in action but at the heart. That’s where the emotions begin to change because they flow from that heart.
