The Importance of Feelings 

The pioneering Victorian psychiatrist Henry Maudsley (1835-1918), after whom the Maudsley Hospital in London was named, famously said “The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep” – highlighting the fact that suppressed emotional pain or grief can sometimes, sooner or later, manifest as physical illness. 

Doctors who have eyes to see it know, from their own clinical experience, the truth of that. But it is not generally acknowledged by scientific medicine.

Listening to our bodies and souls

I know of a man just now whose legs are weeping with ulcers following the death of his wife. But it is hard to get people to connect life events and experiences with the state of their bodies – or, indeed, with the state of their minds. We seem to live into our illnesses. But if people get suggestions or feelings or thoughts they don’t like or can’t cope with, they get offended these days.
 
To make things worse, society is now saturated with ‘wokeness’, which is designed to prevent anyone from the very real danger of being offended by others’ words or actions. People end up at the doctor’s to get a scientific diagnosis and treatment with drugs or surgery, or with some sort of sedation and manipulative psychology; but that does little to fundamentally heal their lives.

Amongst people with whom it is OK to weep and express feelings, however, you can carry your own load of sorrow, or pain, or whatever, without worrying about the effect it may have on others. Christians can then be responsible for themselves before God; which is what Paul effectively recommends in Galatians 6:4-5, where he says, “Carry each other’s burdens…each one should carry his own load”. 

Other people who have sufficient disinterested compassion can sometimes help to deepen truthful understanding and to encourage real healing. But too much apparent helpfulness, pity, or sympathy from other people can interfere with God’s healing. God created us with sensibility, and we need to use godly discernment.

Too much apparent helpfulness, pity, or sympathy from other people can interfere with God’s healing. 

Suppressed feelings

Acknowledging your emotions and feelings, your fear, your anger, and so on, enables you to come to terms with what is truly going on, especially if you’ll accept that God’s only begotten Son Jesus took your sicknesses and pains on the cross (Isaiah 53:4, 1 Peter 2:24), and if you then tell God about what you feel and suffer, and wait for His reply - which is not always what you’d like to hear! This is the way truthfully to stay in touch with reality.
 
Unfortunately, the true significance of emotions is often distorted or hidden. Woke and political correctness certainly assist this. Denying or distorting the true significance of feelings can lead to subsequent confusion and delusion, which is also, in turn, commonly denied.

Suppressing feelings does not actually obliterate them. They can fester under the surface, sometimes gaining demonic power. A lack of true inner peace can set in, which can lead to disturbance of bodily functions, eventually producing physical illness or chronic mental disturbance. The heart can become hardened, and it may even become difficult to allow oneself to love or to be loved, or to see or accept other people for who they really are.

Sensitivity

Having tender feelings, however, can make you vulnerable. People may criticize you for being “touchy-feely.” Cruel and wicked people can even enjoy the adrenalin they get by mocking you, or taking advantage of you, or dominating you for their own ends. Such people commonly live according to man-made rules, which they enforce using manipulation or threats of exclusion or violence, instilling fear into their victims.

Denying or distorting the true significance of feelings can lead to subsequent confusion and delusion, which is also, in turn, commonly denied.

Where fear and violence prevail, people appear tough and get their way aggressively. Personal relationships become manipulative, mechanical, deceptive, demonic and deadly. Appeasement becomes impossible, and any attempts to bring peace and healing are just superficial patch-up jobs.
 
It is important for survival to be sensitive enough to discern evil oppression. Sooner or later, people naturally develop a desire to rebel against submission to an abusive, demonic culture. By faith in Jesus, however, we can prayerfully overcome the urge to rebel and stay under the radar, applying the victory He won on the cross, knowing “we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Heb. 12:28).

No faith in science

I do not want to submit to being told how to think and behave by an artificially intelligent machine, which is the current agenda for one-world governmental control. Electronic data bases are being built in many places to store myriad personal details as data in order to identify and control every individual. Many people passively assume they will be safe if they allow the state to control the population scientifically by artificial intelligence in this way, but I don’t believe they will be.

Although science provides useful answers for many problems, I will not put my faith in science. I do not want a scientific medical diagnosis to disguise the complexity of who I am. I don’t want any scientific category or device to reduce my living soul to the result of a blood test or to the content of my genome, or to limit my thinking.

Many people passively assume they will be safe if they allow the state to control the population scientifically by artificial intelligence.

It is a fact that significant lived experience is coded into RNA, and RNA can then be coded into DNA and thus affect inheritance. But my genes are not immutable. They are parts of my living physiology and my soul. My life is a dynamic, personal whole and Almighty God is in charge. I will not trust science intentionally to manipulate me either as a whole or in part for the sake of any apparent peace.  God created each one of us most wonderfully, as described in Psalm 139, and I want to be totally answerable to the living God who is the only One who saves and heals.

Full of grace

The Christian alternative to being controlled by science, by machines, or by false religion allied with atheistic communism, is to be personal and “full of grace, seasoned with salt” (Col.4:6). That means being filled with Holy Spirit, honest about what comes into our hearts and minds, and submitting it all to God after thankfully accepting that His only begotten Son Jesus passed through death, descended into hell, rose from the dead and overcame Satan on the cross to make atonement for our sin and to set us free from it.

And that means having feelings, and being honest about them before God, and allowing God by His grace to keep on changing each one of us so that we grow closer to Him. This requires a generous Christian Spirit, patient but discerning and hospitably open to one another (Rom. 12:13, 1 John 1:7).

I have seen too many people unnecessarily sent into psychiatric confinement through the premature judgements of legalistic Christians. 

Although the Bible speaks of predestination, I have seen too many people unnecessarily sent into psychiatric confinement through the premature judgements of legalistic Christians. Even those we’ve rejected may yet be found by the Lord, so let us not be presumptuously judgemental (Matt. 7:1-6)! And it is essential to avoid gossip (2 Cor. 12:20). Therefore, leaders should have the personal qualities described by Paul to Timothy.
 
In a multicultural, secular state, government agencies can no longer be trusted to provide the care, healing and protection that are known to be necessary and that Christendom, until recently, provided fairly well.
 
Consequently, it is necessary with God’s help gently and humbly to cultivate amongst ourselves the exercise of all the spiritual gifts He gives us “in accordance with the riches of His grace”.

(Image by Michael De Groot from Pixabay)