Emotionally Healthy Christianity
Sometimes the most godly thing we can do is weep…
When we consider the call to live life the way Jesus did, it’s easy to assume that He did not experience life as you and I do. As if His actions required no faith simply because He’s Jesus. It’s all too convenient to think that because He was God (Jn. 1:14), and because He was sinless (Heb. 4:15), that He didn’t go through the difficult and painful human emotions that you and I do. After all, He knew all the ‘right Biblical answers,’ so surely He would not struggle to do His Father’s will—right? But the Jesus that we actually encounter in the Bible is quite different than that. In Mark 14:32-36, we read of the moments just before His ultimate act of obedience—the giving up of His own life to be the full and final payment for our sin (1st Pet. 2:24, Heb. 10:10)…
“32 Then they went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James, and John with him, and became very troubled and distressed. 34 He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to the point of death. Remain here and stay alert.” 35 Going a little farther, he threw himself to the ground and prayed that if it were possible the hour would pass from him. 36 He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”—(NET).
There is treasure here for us concerning what it means to truly live the life of faith if we are willing to glean it. Here we see a truly human experience in the sinless Son of God. In verse 33, the Text says that Jesus was “distressed.” In the original Greek that Mark employed to write this Gospel account we find that this word can be translated as: “to be in anxiety, troubled, heavy, dejected, full of anguish or sorrow, or even depressed.” How is it that sinless Jesus (having just declared to His disciples that He knows He must be handed over to be crucified for the Salvation of mankind), has these kinds of emotions? —After all, He also knows He will rise from the dead! Shouldn’t that be comfort enough to keep Him from feeling this way? Apparently it’s not. So what can you and I learn from Jesus concerning our ‘down’ moments?
First of all, we learn that it is not inherently sinful or unspiritual to experience or have negative emotions as a Christian. Secondly, we learn that even if we are not doing anything ‘wrong,’ God’s will often involves suffering for His glory and the good of others (cf. Phil. 1:29). Third, we learn that truth is not truth because we might find it emotionally palatable, but rather, truth is truth because God says it is so. Fourth, we learn that God does not expect us to be emotionally unaffected by the challenges of living out our faith as God calls us to obey Him. God the Father received Jesus’ prayers of distress and did not begrudge Him the ‘emotional space,’ or time to grieve or suffer as He wrestled with the challenge of fully submitting to the Father’s will.
So when you read the Bible and find in it commands that cause you grief, you are in good company. You are in Jesus’ company. And lastly, we learn from this text that the proper response after we have grieved and come to God with our distress, is to obey the Father at our own expense, trusting that in the end God will comfort and rescue us just as He did Jesus.
Take a moment and bring whatever is distressing you to Jesus, thank Him for understanding your pain, and then say along with Him, “Yet not what I want, but what you want.”
