Author: Christine Wyrtzen

Emotions and God

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I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You. Job 42:5

The scriptures tell the stories of more than a few who saw the Lord. Each time there were strong emotional responses. People cried out, fell over as dead, declared themselves unclean, and were speechless when they beheld him. We’ve been fed some bad information about emotions not being important, about the preference of facts over feelings. It could really be a paradigm called, “Facts first; feelings immaterial.”

While I agree that feelings aren’t reliable rudders if they run in opposition to the truth of scripture, they are still important. Feelings, when aligned with truth, direct my life just fine. God feels things intensely and I am created in His image. He wants me to experience Him. Love is to be felt. Sin is to be grieved over. Forgiveness is to be exhilarating. Freedom is to be celebrated. Grace is to relax in. Faith is about fact and feeling. Stoicism and Christianity are mutually exclusive.

Tim Keller says that ‘Emotion isn’t just the caboose to our faith. Christianity needs to make emotional sense before it can make rational sense.’ To see Jesus in all of His glory evokes emotion first, belief next.’

A testimony without fire should be suspect. While I understand some people are reserved and find it awkward to be outwardly expressive, I also contend that if any one of us was pulled from a house on fire, there would be visible emotional reactions like relief, gratitude, tears, or all of the above. How can one be monotone about having their life saved! This is one of the reasons I am to live a cross-centered live. It’s a reminder that I’ve been saved, someone died in my place and delivered me from eternal condemnation and alienation from God. I’ve been plucked from the fire and this changes the face of a stoic like me.

If my faith is dry, if I’m out of fuel, what can be done in addition to ‘reviewing and remembering’ my spiritual heroes? I do a self-review by looking back. What has God changed in me that has been most dramatic? About what am I relieved? About what am I most grateful? What has been the darkest area of my life that has seen God’s transforming power? How do I feel about my own sin and His mercy? These answers provide kindling as my emotions engage with the power of God working mightily in me. He is excited about how far I’ve come, He feels intensely about it, and wants to express that to me and through me.

Ever mention the word ‘Jesus’ to another believer and seen their face light up the room? That’s the kind of emotion I’m talking about. While I know there are desert seasons every now and then, the visible engagement of my heart should be what others see and experience.

You make me dance. Thank you. Amen

Bite My Tongue? Perhaps Not!

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We’re not keeping this quiet, not on your life.  Just like the psalmist who wrote, “I believed it, so I said it,” we say what we believe.  2 Corinthians 4:13   THE MESSAGE

Who or what has stolen my speech?  God has planted a word deep within me and I can allow others to render me mute, or at best, shy.  If the word is powerful, the enemy recognized it early and sought to shape my world with naysayers.  Insights and opinions that were offered were frequently disputed.  Oftentimes so strongly, there was deep humiliation.  It didn’t take long for this child to second guess her gut and keep her thoughts to herself.

I remember the day I decided to sit on my tongue.  I was only seven.  When I spoke among those I perceived powerful, I did so with a knot in my stomach.  I seemed to always look at the world outside of the mainstream box.

I was created to speak the Word of God.  That can take many forms.  Telling stories, writing books, praying creatively, speaking God’s insights in non-conventional ways.  A pen can sit nearby but I won’t pick it up because others keep telling me I have no right to use it.  Powerlessness defines my existence as long as I remain silent.

Two things will keep me from engaging my mouth.  1.) I’m not sure that I have a right to speak because powerful people told me I should be ‘seen and not heard.’  And, 2.)  I was paralyzed by the grief of past humiliation.  I was made to feel stupid and am still feeling the leftover aftermath of others’ rejection.

Isaiah 49 says that my mouth is to be a sharp sword.  Just as the Word of God is a sword, inserted into situations that will divide truth from error, my mouth is to have the same effect when God is in charge of it.  This kind of influence commences when I rise up out of defeat and inactivity to say what I was created to say under the power of the Holy Spirit.

Though I am already using my mouth and my pen, there is something deep in me that may not have found its way out yet with the full power of God’s anointing.  When that happens, the kingdom of darkness will be jolted and the bride of Christ will tremble under its influence.  I will know the exhilaration of saying what I was created to say without the slightest hint of reservation.  I’m not there yet.  Where is timidity melted?  In the presence of Love.

Confirm Your message in me.  You are my audience.  In Jesus name, Amen

How Do You Handle a Broken Promise?

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And when Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep,” she took off her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage. Genesis 38:13-14

People can make promises to someone in pain. “If you’ll just stop crying, then …..” Distress makes them uncomfortable and they’ll promise about anything to make the pain go away. Here’s the flip side. Never are we more vulnerable to a promise-maker than when we are in great need.

Tamar married the first son of Judah. God killed him because he was evil. She married the next son of Judah. He was wicked also and God killed him. Though He was protecting her, it probably didn’t feel like it. Perhaps she wondered if she was a curse. Everybody connected to her was getting killed. Can you imagine her grief and confusion?   People in that culture did not grieve quietly. They wailed. In this environment, Judah stepped up and offered his youngest son but Tamar would have to wait years for him because he was young.

While others her age were having children, she was waiting. While others were enjoying their young families, she was waiting. It was a painful day when she realized that Judah forgot or disregarded the promise he had made to her. Realizing that she might remain a widow forever, she took matters into her own hands. She dressed up as a cultic prostitute and waited at the gate where those attending a Canaanite sheep-shearing festival would pass. There, she hoped to snare Judah and sleep with him to get her heir. The one who had broken the promise would be tricked.

When someone makes me a promise, I can own it and feel entitled to it. It’s already mine. When denied, I can set out to force it out of the promise-maker’s hands. “You owe me!” Manipulative tactics instead of prayer are implemented.

Those who intentionally break promises are betrayers. Never are they in more danger than when I put them in God’s hands instead of my own. ‘Forgiveness is taking someone off my hook and putting them on God’s hook.’ I must remember that when someone breaks a promise, God is the One who joyfully keeps His Word and redeems every broken promise with something infinitely better.

I lay down my need for revenge. Like Jesus believed, I know You rule righteously. Amen

When Someone’s Mother Was Absent Yesterday

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Many elderly have died in the past few months with COVID19.  The ones who are left cried their way through Mother’s Day because the loss was fresh and seemed so senseless.  Two families close to me lost their mothers just this week.  Though they were not COVID19 related, grief is still grief.  My own mother died in 1984 but every mother’s day is bittersweet.

It’s easy for a loved one to get stuck in grief if they rarely talk about their loss. Feelings swim around in their heart in pools of sadness.  Everyone needs to talk with other people who love them enough to ask questions and listen well.  Instead, how many get a  scripture verse followed by a pep talk?  It’s not too late to express our hearts toward those who didn’t have a mother to celebrate yesterday.  We can engage even by acknowledging our struggle to know what to say.  (They like that.)

Think of what happens when funerals are over.  How many will tell a grieving friend how much they loved their mother and miss her?  Instead, they’ll do anything to avoid making their friend cry but that’s such an unfortunate choice because we’ve left them alone in their grief.

Eighteen months after my mother died, I happened to run into one of her friends in the post office.  She saw me and started to cry.  “I miss your mother.  It’s August and this is the time of the year we’d pick blueberries together.”  Did her story make me cry?  Yes, I bawled when I got in the car but I was still comforted.  I said to myself, “Oh, thank goodness, someone else misses her too.”  

Don’t let someone grieve alone today.  Send them a note or call them this week.  Encourage them to tell some stories that give release to their sadness.  They will dig deeply to discover words they didn’t even know were there as we help their grief find a voice.

Lord, I need not fear other’s tears.  Your Spirit, the Spirit of Comfort, is with me. Amen

A Map Of ‘Down’

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Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit; he has ceased to act wisely and do good. Psalm 36:1-4

How does the way of the wicked unfold? There is an evolution. Anyone who treasures wisdom and carefully watches the lives of others play out can see the progression. It’s sobering. I have seen these stages materialize in myself and I see this same sequence in others, Christians included. Here’s the map downward into wickedness.

  1. It starts with no fear of God. While ‘fear’ often means ‘reverence’ in scripture, that is not the word meaning here. This time, ‘fear’ means ‘terror.’ If I see no present evidence of a God who holds me accountable for my sin, I might assume He won’t. Biblical warnings are ignored and, worse yet, ridiculed. Terror of God is absent and therefore sin is conceived without any fear of consequences.
  2. Then, I’m driven to flatter myself. Privately, I think I’m a great person and a snob is born. Publicly, I may even boast about it. When God gives a platform, never should it birth a bragger. Unfortunately, I know a pastor who tells his people often how brilliant his professors said he was in college. He even goes so far as to say that he was encouraged to go to an Ivy League school to pursue an intellectual field instead of the pastorate. What he does not see is that his choice to continually flatter himself is described in Psalm 36.
  3. When I become a bragger, a general bent toward deceit follows next. I’ll think nothing of telling one-person one thing and someone else something differently entirely. My guiding paradigm will be whatever makes me look good to protect my reputation. If I’m a leader, everything beneath me implodes.
  4. Lastly, wisdom erodes. In the first stages, wisdom can appear to be present but eventually, my conscience sears. The cycle of sin and the resulting stronghold in my life turns me into a foolish person who runs her world recklessly.

I do not know if you find yourself in this progression. At times, I have. I was careless with my sin. I made poor choices with the awareness that all I had to do was tell God I’m sorry. I took advantage of His grace and I possessed a lazy view of His justice. As a rule, I want to be able to see myself at the beginning of this journey downward, humble myself before an all powerful and merciful God, and make a course correction.

I see the map. The way down is not abstract because You laid it all out for me. Pave my way with warning signs if I start down the wrong path. In Jesus name, Amen

When He Doesn’t Fix It!

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But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.  Psalm 131:2

When a mother weans her child, she has to deny him what he wants and then comfort him when he realizes he can’t have it.  She weans him because it is necessary for his growth into a new phase of life.  She appears cruel to the child yet he turns to her for consolation.  She loves him so she persists in the training but also weeps at the pain she is causing.

So it is with God.  He weans me off things that are not good for me.  He often withholds healing for a greater good that remains a mystery.  He delays deliverance for reasons I might never know.  The life of faith is not the stuff of Pollyanna.  It is not for the fainthearted.

 So when things don’t feel right, when my heart is churning, when I’m tired of waiting, when my old wounds don’t appear to be any less severe, when I’m sick of myself, when I want what I want, when I dig deeply to try to will my soul to be quiet to no avail, it takes grace beyond what I can manufacture to run to the One who could fix everything that plagues me ~ but doesn’t.  I could be tormented about why He restrains Himself, why He withholds, why I continue to live in the period of the ‘not yet’, but right now ~ I need Him to comfort me.

There are periods in every life where answers aren’t provided.  What can be counted on are everlasting arms.  In this time of great uncertainty, a time when God is comforting instead of fixing, He can be trusted.  Comfort is available.  The song of the One who rocks us as children can still be heard.

Your grace carries me through to glory.  Amen

 

 

The P.S. of Paul’s Letter

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I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.  For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naïve.  Romans 16:17-18

I’m sure you can relate to this.  You’re on the phone with a friend and just when it’s time to hang up, your friend says, “Oh, one more thing!”   Sometimes, that additional thought was simmering all along and ended up being the point of the call.

I remember one occasion when I was visiting someone.  We had said our goodbyes.  I was in my car, backing out of the driveway, when in the rear view mirror I saw her running down her driveway after me.  “There’s something I’ve been too scared to tell you the whole time you’ve been here but I can’t let you drive away without speaking it.”  I pulled in, parked, and we sat in the car to talk another hour.

This is tone of the important p.s. in Paul’s long letter.  He has said his goodbyes.  He has reviewed faces, carved out last words, and just as he’s ready to say farewell, he stops to change gears entirely.  What is so important?  The matter of bad doctrine seeping into their midst.

What’s so dangerous about that!  Isn’t it usually over minor issues?  That’s naïve if that’s what I believe.  Here’s the thing.  The Word of God is the Word of Jesus.  Anything that is added or distorted is no longer the words of Jesus.  Whose words are they?  Who would want to twist, distort, minimize, and mislead?  Our enemy.  He is subtle and works through the sinful appetites of men through their cravings for power, control, respect, or wealth.  Adjust a small preposition in a sentence and the whole meaning changes.

Paul is parental.  He sees the faces of these loved ones and is suddenly afraid for the potential that exists for bad doctrine; the kind that might begin small and lead them away from their secure position as a much-loved son or daughter of God.  Peter was also parental and warned his loved ones of the same thing.  “Be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.”  What is the security he speaks of?  Knowing who my God is and knowing that I can trust Him no matter what.  Bad doctrine always erodes trust and causes me to back up.

 And important postscript to any conversation.

One bad doctrine, Lord.  Like – You could disown me and I could lose my salvation – and I’ll live in fear.  So, please set off alarms so that I am not fooled in this age of deception.  Amen

No Longer On Speaking Terms

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I proclaim your saving acts in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, Lord, as you know. I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help. I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness from the great assembly. Psalm 40:9-10

What do you do when the person you’re counting on lets you down?  Just when you need them most, they aren’t there for you.  Perhaps the first thing you do is cry out in protest. “Where has your heart gone?  I thought you loved me?” But when your words do not move them to draw closer, you might stop talking and turn the other way.

Such can be the case when I perceive that God is failing me. I’ve prayed for things I believe I need right now. I reason that anyone who loves me wouldn’t withhold it. I try to muster up some faith so I can pray harder, and longer. I may make excuses for God to others but the first signs of disillusionment have already been manifested in the core of my soul. My testimony sounds hollow, even to me. Eventually, armed with the lies of the evil one, I turn away from God’s face and stop talking.

Did you see today’s scripture? David is speaking in glowing terms about God’s faithfulness. If I had to guess, I’d say that God just came through for David in some huge way. David is fresh off of some kind of mountaintop experience. But that would be the danger of taking these two verses out of context. David is, in fact, in turmoil and waiting on God. His soul is ragged and desperate. Yet, in spite of this, and in spite of the fact that his eyes have yet to see the saving help he ascribes to God, he is still talking.

This is the essence of faith; faith that I cannot manufacture on my own. In my need, in my disappointment, in my wilderness, and in my waiting, I brag on God’s love and faithfulness to others. Not only that, but I encourage them to put their lives in His hands. How can this be? Because the foundation of my life rests on the pillars of God’s promises! I know in my spirit that God has not abandoned nor forgotten me. I can, simultaneously, pour out my complaint in prayer and speak of His glory ~ whether in private or in public assemblies.

For all the years I thought repeatedly of shutting You out, forgive me. Amen

Save

Can I Predict Someone’s Response?

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He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.  Isaiah 33:6

Intimacy means that I will probably have an idea of how someone I’m close to will react to something ahead of time. I’ll know if he will like this or hate that. Or, if he will be angry over one thing and deeply moved by something else. There are no shortcuts to knowing a person that well, either. Time and investment are required.
Ron and I have been married for 47 years. Yesterday, I walked in the kitchen and said, “Let’s talk about next Christmas.” He chuckled and guessed a couple of reasons I might want to bring up the topic. I laughed. He could have easily been right about any of them but this time, he wasn’t. My point is, there is nothing like longevity in a relationship.

Do I know God that well? I should.  Wisdom and knowledge are promised to me.  It’s a kind of spiritual osmosis because Wisdom lives inside of me.  And if I’ve spent enough time hanging out with Him, getting to know what He loves and hates, becoming acquainted with what makes him angry or sad, familiarizing myself with what kind of person He blesses and whom He shuns, I should also be able to predict pretty accurately what He thinks about a certain situation. Not only do I have history to lean on, or the Word to refer to, but I have His Holy Spirit inside of me emitting His feelings. The latter is not talked about enough.

Have you ever felt God’s sadness over someone lost? Have you felt His disappointment at the news of a failed marriage? Have you felt His grief, even anger, when a church has grown cold? I believe that I should pray more, “Lord, let me feel what You feel about this.

After a long life with Jesus, there should be a certain amount of predictability. Time and investment affords that.

Every time I discern Your heart and Your thoughts, stability graces my life. Amen