I Can Tell God What’s Really Going On

“Get up, cry out in the night, even as the night begins. Pour out your heart like water in prayer to the Lord.” Lamentations 2:19 (NCV)

If I ever thought I had a bad day? Job would understand; he practically had a PhD in pain and loss.

In the very first chapter of Job, everything in his life fell apart. His response? “Job stood up, tore his robe in grief, and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground and worshiped” (Job 1:20 GW).

Notice that Job openly expressed his pain to God. When I experience pain, do I tell God exactly how I feel? What I'm learning is that It should be the first thing I do.

God can handle my anger and frustration. He can handle my emotions. Why? Because he gave them to me. I was made in his image, and he is an emotional God.

When a 2-year-old has a temper tantrum and pulls on my legs, I can handle that. In the same way, God is bigger than my emotions, and it’s okay to tell him exactly how I feel.

When I pray for a promotion but don’t get it, when a loved one walks out, or when I get a dreaded call saying, “It’s cancer,” I can tell God how I feel. I can say, “I’m mad. I’m upset. I’m frustrated.” God can handle my complaints, questions, fear, and grief. God’s love for me is bigger than all my emotions.

I remember my daughter would sometimes question my judgment—even though she knew I loved her and had more life experience. Still, I’d rather have an honest, gut-level conversation with her than have her stuff frustration and disappointment inside.

God is the same way! He would rather I wrestle with him in anger than walk away in detached apathy. 

When tragedy strikes, I don’t have to grin and bear it. Instead, go to my heavenly Father with my pain. “Get up, cry out in the night, even as the night begins. Pour out your heart like water in prayer to the Lord” (Lamentations 2:19 NCV).

In summary:

Lamentations 2:19 encourages me to pour out my heart to God in prayer—especially in pain. Job modeled this when he lost everything yet honestly expressed his grief to God. Like Job, I don't need to hide or suppress my emotions. God created me with feelings and is big enough to handle my anger, fear, grief, and frustration. When life falls apart, the best response isn’t to shut down emotionally but to bring everything—raw and unfiltered—to God. He values honest, heartfelt connection far more than quiet detachment. God’s love is bigger than my emotions, and He welcomes every part of me in prayer.

Bottom Line:

God can handle my raw emotions, and He wants me to bring my pain, anger, and grief to Him honestly in prayer—because He loves me and meets me there.

My Emotions Serve a Purpose

“The most important commandment is this . . . ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” Mark 12:29-30 (NLT)

Jesus says in Mark 12:29-30, “The most important commandment is this . . . ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength” (NLT).

Do you hear the emotion in the words of Jesus? He’s saying he doesn’t want me to just kind of love him. He wants me to love him passionately—with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength. God wants more than my head knowledge. He wants an emotional relationship with me.

Here are some things to understand emotions. 

First, God has emotions. God is an emotional God. He feels joy, grief, pain, and hatred toward sin. He gets frustrated with people. The only reason I have emotions is because I'm made in God’s image. If God wasn’t an emotional God, I wouldn’t have any emotions.

Second, my ability to feel is a gift from God. Emotions are what make me human. It is my emotional ability that allows me to love and create and to be faithful, loyal, kind, and generous—to experience all the emotions that are attached to the good things in life. My emotions may not always seem like a gift, but even the negative ones have a purpose in my life.

Third, there are two extremes to avoid. Emotionalism is the extreme of saying the only thing that matters in life is how I feel—not what I think or what’s right or wrong. Everything in life is based on my emotions. Emotions control my life.

On the other hand, stoicism says feelings aren’t important at all, and the only things that matter are my intellect and my will.

There are many differing approaches to emotions. Some people have decided that it doesn’t really matter how I feel. They downplay emotions—but that’s not right.

The Bible says this about God: “You look deep within the mind and heart, O righteous God” (Psalm 7:9 NLT). He really cares about what I think and feel!

God gave me my emotions for a reason, and he wants me to worship him emotionally—with all my heart and all my mind.

In Summary:

Jesus teaches in Mark 12:29-30 that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength—showing that God desires a deep, passionate, and emotional relationship with us, not just intellectual belief. This highlights the importance of emotions in our faith, as God Himself is emotional and created us in His image with the ability to feel. Emotions are a gift that allow me to experience life fully, but I must avoid two extremes: emotionalism, where feelings rule over truth, and stoicism, where emotions are ignored. Instead, God calls me to a balanced, wholehearted worship that involves both my thoughts and my feelings.

How to Be Like Jesus in Conflict

In Philippians 2:4-5 I read, “Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.” (NLT)

When I meet someone in order to resolve a conflict, I first have to confess my part of the problem. Then I need to listen for the other person’s hurt and perspective.

In every conflict—from personal relationships to politics—we think we argue over ideas. But we actually argue over emotion. Anytime there’s a conflict, someone’s feelings were hurt; somebody felt abused or slighted. It’s not the idea that causes the conflict. It’s the emotion behind the idea.

Hurt people hurt people. The more someone is experiencing hurt, the more likely they are to lash out at everyone else. People who aren’t experiencing hurt don’t hurt others. People who are filled with love are loving toward others. People who are filled with joy are joyful toward others. People who are filled with peace are at peace with everybody else. But people who are filled with hurt are going to hurt others. They’re going to lash out.

If I want to connect with people, I must start with their hurts, their needs, and their interests. If I want to be a good salesperson, I don’t start with your product. I start with your customer’s hurts, needs, and interests. If I want to be a good professor or pastor or anything else, I start with people’s needs, hurts, and interests.

Philippians 2:4-5 says, “Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had” (NLT).

In times of conflict, am I so busy trying to get others to see my position that I don’t listen to theirs? When each person is just speaking and not listening, I move further and further away from each other emotionally.

Instead, I need to intentionally switch my focus from my needs to their needs. Conflict resolution starts with the way I look at the situation. The word “look” in Philippians 2:4 is the Greek word scopos. It’s where we get our words “microscope” and “telescope.”

Scopos means “to focus.” The passage goes on to say that I should have the same attitude Jesus had. And I am most like Jesus when I’m focusing on the hurts of somebody else rather than my own.

There’s an old proverb that says, “Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.” When I’m focused on the other person’s needs and not my own, I’ll be able to get a better understanding of the situation and move forward with resolving the conflict.