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Communicating Negative Feelings - Part 2
by Dr. Larry Crabb
For a biblical perspective on communicating negative feelings we need to know how God looks at feelings. A suggestive account of one way God views emotional expression is recorded in Ezekiel 24. God told Ezekiel that He was about to take the life of his wife, a woman Ezekiel loved dearly.
The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears. Groan quietly; do not mourn for the dead....
Now, the death of a beloved wife is naturally an occasion for profound grief and sadness. But notice how God instructed Ezekiel to handle his feelings. In verse 17, God told His servant to "groan quietly."
Two truths stand out in these directions. First, God acknowledged that Ezekiel will feel real emotions. He did not tell Ezekiel to feel anything other than what he did feel. The fact is that we are incapable of directly changing an emotion.
We have two sets of choices in responding to a feeling: (1) we can acknowledge them or pretend they do not exist, and (2) we can express them or not express them.
God's instruction to groan encourages Ezekiel to acknowledge how feels, to experience inwardly the weight of a painful response to a pain-inducing event. Ezekiel's feelings were not sinful.
Second, God instructed Ezekiel to deny himself any form of public expression of his private grief. Ezekiel was to acknowledge inwardly how he felt ("groan"), but he was not to express this outwardly ("quietly"). After instructed Ezekiel to acknowledge his feelings inwardly, God directed him to control the expression of his emotions according to the constraints of a larger purpose.
It seems to me that despite the special prophetic circumstances of Ezekiel's experience, a very helpful principle emerges from God's command to "groan quietly":
When an emotion arises within us, we are to:
1. Acknowledge to ourselves and to God how we feel, allowing ourselves to inwardly experience the full weight of our emotions;
2. Subordinate the public expression of our feelings to the goal of allowing God to use us for His purposes.
Thus, emotional acknowledgement is always proper; emotional expression is legitimate only when it does not conflict with our fulfilling God's purposes.
Editor's note: Dr. Crabb then goes on to discuss how to understand God's purposes in marriage by discussing the principle of goal vs. desire. We greatly encourage you to read further.
Content taken directly from The Marriage Builder: A Blueprint for Couples and Counselors by Larry Crabb, published by Zondervan Publishing.
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