I get the impression from some Christians that if I am not always smiling, always cheerful, always feeling on top of the world, that somehow I\u2019m sinning. We\u2019ve all heard the old story now, about the man who went to church and the pastor asked him, \u201cHow are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019m doing fine,\u201d said the man, \u201cunder the circumstances\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhat are you doing under the circumstances, brother?\u201d asked the pastor. <\/p>\n
\tNo matter how bad you feel, you can always be made to feel just a tad worse by some well-meaning person heaping a load of guilt on your back to go along with that burden you\u2019re already hauling. <\/p>\n
\tHow does this happen, that certain emotions get black listed? The positive emotions\u2014well, except maybe lust\u2014are praised and extolled, but those we label as negative, are shamed. On top of feeling bad because we\u2019re sad or dis-couraged, we are made to feel guilty because of how bad we\u2019re feeling, because we\u2019re not looking at the bright side, because we\u2019re forgetting our \u201cfirst love\u201d, because we\u2019ve taken our eyes off Jesus and like Peter, we now sink into the stormy sea. And so, already hurting and discouraged, we drop even lower thanks to the well-intentioned \u201cencouragement\u201d of our companions, or our own mental nannies. <\/p>\n
\tThis of course is nonsensical given both the nature of life, as well as what we see of life reflected in the Bible. Despair is not a sin. Feeling bad when you\u2019re hurting is not a sin. As you regain consciousness after you\u2019ve been hit by a bus, your legs broken, your arms fractured, your body in so much pain that even your hair follicles ache, you are insane if you smile and say \u201cPraise Jesus, I\u2019m so thankful for getting squished by that bus.\u201d Being thankful in everything does not mean thanking God that you\u2019re identifying your child\u2019s battered body in the morgue. That is insane and that is foolish and that is imagining God is an ogre.<\/p>\n
\tMoses felt despair, Abraham felt despair, and even Jesus felt despair. Sometimes, when you\u2019re a human being living on the wrong side of morning, you need to feel despair.<\/p>\n
\u201cRejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!.\u201d So said Paul in his letter to the church in Philippi (Philippians 4:4). This must be understood in the context of \u201cJesus wept.\u201d as recorded by John in John 11:35 and that there is \u201ca time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance\u201d as recorded in Ecclesiastes 3:4. Circumstances do dictate how you feel. The Bible acknowledges this. Keeping your perspective does not mean you\u2019ll not still feel awful when the bad times roll. Duh. Why should I even have to say such a thing? But I know Christians who think that they must always be able to rise above any and every circumstance and feel joy no matter what. I say to them: Jesus wept. We should pay attention to those two words. He was crying because Lazarus was dead. He was crying because everyone around him whom he loved desperately was sad. And yet, he knew that in only a very short time he\u2019d be bringing Lazarus back from death.<\/p>\n
Jesus despaired on the cross, even though he knew that he would rise from the grave in three days.<\/p>\n
It is okay to feel bad. There\u2019s something wrong with you if you don\u2019t when something awful happens. We are not Vulcans and even the Vulcans have the same emotions, they just choose to suppress them. Maybe that\u2019s okay for a fictional science fiction species. That is not okay for human beings who are not fictional.<\/p>\n
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