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Feelings can be tricky, can’t they? Not just putting them into words but describing what they are in the first place. 

On the one hand, they’re reactions— involuntary responses to the events happening around us. They swell up from within us during a celebration, an argument, an adventure, or a loss to describe how our internal world is engaging with the world around us.

And on the other hand, feelings are a mixture of sorts. The temperament with which we’re born get stirred in with the core beliefs we’ve been developing over time about ourselves and the world around us. And then that temperament and those beliefs mix with things like the extent to which we’re rested, nourished (with food), hydrated, and comfortable with the folks we happen to be with in a given moment until, DING! Out comes something like sadness, curiosity, or excitement.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful things about feelings— in all their complexity— is that we can form a relationship with them. Sure, feelings can seem to sweep over us unexpectedly (and sometimes inconveniently). And yes, feelings are a mixture of things that can be quite difficult to understand (I mean, temperament alone can be a bit confusing). 

However, the writer of Psalm 4 models for us the art of relating with our feelings in a way that invites them into our spirituality rather than separating them off into a corner. 

We’re invited into four actions we can take when we’re feeling negative emotions like sadness, anger, or even bordering on despair in order to come away with clarity and confidence in what to expect from God (i.e., faith) and from ourselves (i.e., character):

  1. “Know that the Lord has set apart the faithful for himself.” We’re invited to remind ourselves that God has committed themselves to our wellbeing and has empowered us to partner with them in the work of restoring the world to wholeness. This reminder grounds us in the present and reminds us of our agency and impact on the world.
  2. “…the Lord will hear when I call to him.” We’re invited to remember that God is not passively standing by. God will respond to our calls for justice and will create wholeness and Shalom in the world. This anchors us in hopefulness for the future.
  3. “Be angry and do not sin.” We’re invited to be angry— feel that thing. We are permitted to say within ourselves or even out loud to a trusted person, “I am angry… I am disappointed… I am confused.” However, we are cautioned not to cause emotional or physical harm to others in the process. This inspires us toward love and honor.
  4. “…reflect in your heart while on your bed and be silent.” We’re invited into self-reflection. This motivates us to ask our feelings questions about what is true about the world. We ask anger, “What was taken from me?” And we ask sadness, “What have I lost?” When we ask feelings questions, we discover what’s true about our values (what’s important to us) and about what’s happened to us.

It takes time to feel. And for some who are healing from trauma or significant relational wounding, it takes work as well. But this four-step process offered to us through the fourth psalm can help us choreograph our feelings into the rhythms of our lives. If we put in just a little bit of that time and little bit of that work over and over again, we discover a dance that we share with our feelings and with God— a graceful offering of honesty and a gift of faith and character in return. 

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Micah is a licensed professional counselor who loves to help people develop a deep knowledge of God, of themselves, and of others that makes love, truth and grace abound. She loves reading, riding her bicycle, and laughing loudly with her husband, Malcolm. 

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