Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 198

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Merry almost Christmas. I hope that you guys are

00:00:07.300 excited. If your kids are in school, I hope you guys are excited about your kids being out of

00:00:11.320 school probably Friday. I would guess is the last day. I think that's where it falls. I stopped

00:00:17.060 thinking and, you know, winter breaks, Christmas breaks and things like that when I graduated from

00:00:22.680 college. So I don't know how all of that works, but I do have nieces and nephews in school and

00:00:27.380 I know that their parents are really excited for a little bit of a break. And I know that you guys

00:00:31.880 are too. Some of you sent me your Christmas traditions and you're so excited to be able

00:00:36.680 to spend this time with your family. And I'm excited for you too. We are also excited over here

00:00:42.280 first Christmas with baby girl. And it's just fun, even though she has no idea what's going on.

00:00:48.660 It just adds another level of excitement. I know a lot of you out there also first time moms and you

00:00:54.640 are feeling the same kinds of feelings of excitement that I am. So Merry Christmas for

00:01:00.380 those of you who don't like the holidays because you are going through something, whether it's

00:01:05.740 experiencing loss or the holidays are just hard for you for several different reasons. Know that

00:01:11.040 I'm thinking about you and I am praying for you as well. It's really difficult and, uh, it's really

00:01:17.560 easy, I would say, I guess, to feel alone when everyone seems to be celebrating and it's difficult

00:01:24.040 for you to have those feelings of celebration. But good news is for you and for all of us,

00:01:29.300 we are talking about feelings today. We are talking about, uh, how to assess our feelings,

00:01:36.680 address our feelings from a biblical perspective. We're going to look at what the world tells us about

00:01:42.340 how we feel and what the Bible tells us about how we feel and how we can, uh, deal with ourselves,

00:01:50.100 I guess, or, uh, conduct ourselves as naturally emotional people in a way that is godly in a way

00:01:57.720 that is Christ-like. So no matter what you are going through this holiday season, whether you were

00:02:03.120 having bad feelings or good feelings, excited feelings, nervous feelings, overwhelmed, ecstatic,

00:02:08.500 whatever it is, we can all look at our emotions and the nature of emotions in light of scripture,

00:02:14.660 because that is what we are called to do as Christians. Look at everything through the light

00:02:18.640 of scripture. So that's what we are going to be talking about today. Okay. Let's get into today's

00:02:23.440 episode, which I'm really excited about. I had a lot of fun making it. And as always, I know I say this

00:02:28.340 every week, but every time I do any, any kind of theological episode or any episode on the Bible,

00:02:33.600 I am always, uh, I'm always revealed. God always reveals to me the sin that I have in my own heart.

00:02:40.960 That is the sin that we are addressing. So always know that, that I am learning along with you. And

00:02:47.080 I truly am reading my Bible as I am preparing these things. I'm not just saying, you know,

00:02:52.440 this sounds good to say to someone, but I don't really need to apply it to myself. No,

00:02:56.620 I'm always thinking, wow, this is what I found out in God's word about this particular subject.

00:03:01.480 Just as I was studying this, although, you know, I go into these things kind of having an idea,

00:03:07.120 obviously of what scripture says, but I'm always revealed more. I'm always, uh, I always understand

00:03:12.840 more than I did, uh, before I started preparing for these episodes afterwards. And so I'm excited,

00:03:18.720 uh, I'm excited to share with you what I learned in studying our emotions and our feelings. We women

00:03:26.280 are especially emotional creatures. That is a beautiful part of who we are. That is, uh, a wonderful

00:03:32.460 part of women being made in God's image is that we are especially emotional. We don't compartmentalize

00:03:39.640 quite as well as men do, or I would say, I don't even know if compartmentalization is necessarily

00:03:45.040 always a gift, but we don't do it quite as much as men do. We have things. We're more like spaghetti.

00:03:51.360 Men are more like waffles. They can kind of compartmentalize different parts of their

00:03:56.460 lives. When you're in high school and you broke up with that guy or he broke up with you and you

00:04:01.420 were sitting around being like, Oh my gosh, I'm so sad all the time. I can't eat. I can't think I

00:04:06.380 can't sleep. I can't do anything without thinking about this guy. And then you saw on Facebook,

00:04:12.020 cause that was really like the only social media we had when I was in high school. You saw on Facebook

00:04:15.660 that your ex-boyfriend who just dumped you is like already at some ranch, like writing on four

00:04:20.760 wheelers or something. And you're like, how can he be happy? Well, that is one gift that the guys

00:04:25.820 have. If you want to call it a gift, which it is in a lot of ways, they are able to kind of

00:04:30.260 compartmentalize their life, turn something off and direct their focus at another thing. Women can do

00:04:35.700 that to an extent, certainly, especially moms who are so good at multitasking, but we're not,

00:04:41.100 we're not quite, we don't do that quite as much as men do. And that's actually a good thing in so many

00:04:46.520 ways. But we're going to talk about the goods and the bads of being hyper, I would say hyper

00:04:52.320 emotional creatures, not just naturally, but especially in this day and age that glorifies

00:04:57.840 our emotions as things that we absolutely must follow. We could have a month long series on

00:05:03.920 emotions where we interview experts in psychology, where we talk to Christian counselors and authors

00:05:08.840 who've been studying human emotions for decades. We could go through the plethora of biblical

00:05:14.060 resources on the topic. There's so much to say, and we probably will cover it in multiple

00:05:20.140 episodes, you know, throughout however long relatable lasts, and we can interview experts

00:05:26.300 on this. But today we are not going to be able to cover all of that. I want to focus particularly

00:05:31.260 on a trend that I have seen in social media. We've actually talked a little bit about it before

00:05:36.500 because I got a question about it on Instagram. It's one that I think Christian women, this trend

00:05:41.940 can easily fall into, and that is the glorification of sadness, the glorification of all of our

00:05:49.540 emotions, the centrality of all of our emotions, the glorification of emotional turbulence. We hear

00:05:56.420 this in songs a lot, the ups and downs of relationships, relationships that truly are toxic, relationships

00:06:03.020 that are truly unhealthy. We hear that glorified in songs a lot. I was seeing a post the other day,

00:06:08.760 this self-love Instagram account that I followed just to see what that kind of what that realm is

00:06:16.520 talking about. And it was a shirt that they were selling that just said, I'm sad. And I've talked

00:06:22.320 about this before, but the realm of self-love that is so obsessed with self-acceptance, self-love,

00:06:28.480 all of that, they are so often miserable. Like they are so often talking about how sad they are,

00:06:35.040 how lonely they are. And they talk about how it's not just okay to feel those things,

00:06:39.260 but it's actually good to feel those things so much so that they would sell a t-shirt that says,

00:06:43.400 I'm sad on it. And I'm going to talk about how we can kind of balance accepting or assessing our

00:06:50.340 feelings and the biblical mandate that we have to be joyful. And of course, to subject all of our

00:06:57.320 emotions, no matter what they are, to the word of God, to God's wisdom. So under this category of

00:07:03.620 the glorification, the worldly glorification of emotional turbulence is also, and I know this

00:07:09.180 is going to sound controversial a little bit, and you might kind of flinch when I say this,

00:07:15.100 but know that I'm going to talk about it. And I'm certainly coming from a place of truth and

00:07:19.180 compassion and not a place of judgment. But this also, the glorification of emotions and emotional

00:07:25.360 turbulence and sadness and even depression and anxiety, there's a glorification of that,

00:07:30.540 it seems like in our society also leads to an overemphasis on therapy, on introspection to

00:07:37.820 the point of addiction to self-evaluation that typically often comes in the form of obsession

00:07:45.380 with personality tests as well. Even the Enneagram, we have talked about the Enneagram on this podcast

00:07:51.480 on an episode titled Personality Test. You can check that out if you'd like. A couple months ago,

00:07:57.560 I said something on my Instagram that got some pushback. There was a quote that I reposted from

00:08:03.700 a self-love page that said, quote, your feelings are valid. And I've seen this phrase probably a

00:08:09.480 dozen times at least since then. And it's always on pages dedicated to self-love, to self-care,

00:08:14.760 to self-esteem, to self-empowerment, et cetera. Here is a post posted this week from a page called

00:08:20.980 self-care is a priority with about 140,000 followers that said, that said this, you are not overreacting.

00:08:28.640 You are not too sensitive. If it hurts you, then it hurts you. Whatever you are feeling is valid. Pain

00:08:33.440 is pain. Then the caption said, your feelings are valid no matter how small or how irrelevant other

00:08:39.320 people think it is. So on its face, this is a message of comfort, of course. And I have no doubt

00:08:44.900 that the author of this post has very good and empathetic intentions. This is a message that we

00:08:50.620 may feel like we need to hear when we are overwhelmed or when we're struggling with feelings

00:08:55.780 of shame or stress or sadness. Maybe someone has told us that we are being too sensitive or that we

00:09:01.760 are overreacting. Maybe someone told us to, and we know this is the absolute worst. Maybe someone told

00:09:06.240 us to calm down when we were frustrated or upset about something. But here's why. Here's why this,

00:09:13.300 your feelings are valid message is a lie. And it is, this is what we are going to dive into today.

00:09:19.760 Sometimes your feelings are valid, but very often they are not. Very often we are overreacting. Very

00:09:29.180 often we are being too sensitive. Very often our feelings are irrelevant. And all of that sounds really

00:09:36.360 harsh today. It sounds even blasphemous today because the psychology of self-esteem, which has been around

00:09:43.000 for a long, a long time, a lot longer than Instagram has convinced us that our feelings

00:09:49.460 are the truest part about us, that how we feel is our identity, how we feel is our truth. This idea has

00:09:57.080 been implanted into our heads, uh, that, that come from this, uh, that our feelings come from this

00:10:03.840 unadulterated inner part of us. And they are revealing deep truths about ourselves, the people

00:10:10.180 around us and the universe that we have to pay attention to all of these feelings. And we have to

00:10:15.540 follow them because they are revealing not just the truest part of us, but the truest part of everything

00:10:20.480 around us. This is really a new age idea. And if you haven't noticed, the new age is extremely popular

00:10:27.300 right now in the United States of America, particularly on Instagram, particularly in

00:10:31.900 the wellness world, particularly in the fitness world, but really in all realms of, uh, of young

00:10:38.540 female self-help culture, particularly on social media, new age is big. So that's, uh, behind the

00:10:45.140 study of a lot of personality tests. Not every single person who takes a personality test or who promotes

00:10:50.540 a personality test buys into the new age, but a lot of the thinking, if you go back and listen to that

00:10:55.740 Enneagram personality test, uh, personality test episode, you will see that the foundation,

00:11:01.780 the background of a lot of these tests have to do with Eastern mysticism and the new age. So that's

00:11:07.640 behind a lot of these personality tests, even, uh, yoga or crystals or Zen, all of this, they have

00:11:15.120 roots in Eastern mysticism and the new age. And that has become extremely popular these days in American

00:11:20.960 culture. And you will find a common theme in all of these, uh, that the journey, uh, to the real

00:11:27.920 inner self is the most important and pure journey that you will ever take. They are presented as tools,

00:11:34.960 this yoga or crystals or Zen or certain forms of meditation or personality tests. These things are

00:11:40.500 often in this realm presented as tools to help you discover who you really are, to get in touch with

00:11:47.400 the hidden identity that has gotten buried inside of you, buried by societal expectations, other

00:11:53.860 people's negative opinions, self-doubt, whatever it is. If you listen to someone like Glennon Doyle or

00:12:00.220 someone like Rachel Hollis, these are not people that we would automatically put in the Eastern mystic

00:12:07.640 camp. Certainly not. Or there are a lot of other self-help gurus that are gurus that are like them,

00:12:13.280 that we would not say, okay, these are new agey Eastern mystic kind of people. Of course not.

00:12:19.860 And yet you will find underneath a lot of their messaging, this theme that who you really are,

00:12:26.740 who you really are in the deep core of your being is being repressed by external forces, criticism,

00:12:33.120 standards, norms, et cetera. And that if you can just let these things go through self-love,

00:12:37.860 if you can just shed these things off, you will find your real unabashed, authentic, amazing self

00:12:44.320 underneath it all. And when you do, you will realize your potential. You'll be successful.

00:12:49.640 You'll be satisfied. You'll be happy. I'll give you an example from Glennon Doyle,

00:12:54.340 who just released her latest book called Untamed, which is about women being quote,

00:12:58.520 full of themselves. This quote is actually something she said during her speaking tour,

00:13:03.600 saw in a video. Uh, this is a love letter that she wrote to her audience. She says,

00:13:09.220 there's a voice inside all of you that will guide you and you must learn to trust it. Don't ask the

00:13:15.300 voice about what's right or wrong. Don't ask what you should or shouldn't do. Don't ask what is good

00:13:20.400 or bad. These are man-made and culturally constructed concepts. We have to ask it. What is true and

00:13:27.800 beautiful? And it will always have an answer for you. You will become the pioneer of your

00:13:33.440 own life. That is Glennon Doyle's love letter to you. This is Eastern mysticism, uh, meets Western

00:13:41.740 individualism. So this is finding yourself meeting, achieving your goals. This describes a lot of what

00:13:49.280 is on the self-help shelves and stores right now. The idea that who you are deep down is not just good,

00:13:57.220 but in a sense perfect. It is your, uh, more pure self. Therefore the feelings that flow from it are

00:14:04.120 worth affirming. They're worth listening to. And in most cases they are worth following. And before we

00:14:10.860 get into biblically why this is not true, I want to talk about what is true about the perspective of

00:14:18.620 our feelings being valid. So here are three things, three things that are true about our feelings that

00:14:25.220 the secular world, this kind of new agey world, the self-help world would probably agree with that

00:14:29.960 I will to one degree agree with as well. Number one, your feelings are real. Yes, your feelings are

00:14:37.660 real. That is why it is hurtful. And most of the time unhelpful when someone dismisses your feelings

00:14:43.900 as irrelevant or as too sensitive or as an overreaction and just tells you to calm down. That is why it is so

00:14:51.540 endlessly frustrating when someone patronizes you by saying you shouldn't feel the way that you feel

00:14:57.560 rather than listening to you. It is painful. So one, your feelings are real. Number two, your capacity

00:15:05.420 to feel is natural. It is God given. We have emotions because we are made in the image of God,

00:15:13.240 not in spite of being made in the image of God. God himself displays emotion. Psalm 711 says,

00:15:19.460 God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day. A God who feels indignation

00:15:27.300 every day. Genesis 6, 6. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on earth and it grieved him

00:15:33.800 to his heart. That is a heartbreaking verse. I'll read that again. And the Lord regretted that he had

00:15:39.480 made man on earth and it grieved him to his heart. Psalm 11, 5. The Lord tests the righteous,

00:15:46.260 but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Jeremiah 32, 41. I will rejoice

00:15:54.080 in them doing good and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness and with all my heart and all

00:16:01.020 my soul. Because your feelings, number three. So number two was your capacity to feel is God given.

00:16:09.200 God has emotions. Number three, because your feelings are real and because your capacity to

00:16:16.140 feel them is God given, your feelings aren't important and they should be assessed. So the

00:16:22.280 things that are true about our feelings that this self-help, self-focus, self-love, your feelings are

00:16:28.300 valid crowd would agree with is one, your feelings are real. Two, your capacity to feel is natural or

00:16:34.740 God given. Number three, because your feelings are real and your capacity to feel them is God given,

00:16:41.040 your feelings are important and should be assessed. So let us move on to what is not true that this

00:16:50.260 world, that this realm that says your feelings are valid would say. What is not true about their

00:16:57.280 perspective on feelings, about the worldly secular perspective on feelings that you might even see

00:17:03.160 permeating Christian circles and the church? Number one, what is not true is that your feelings are

00:17:11.340 always valid. Your feelings may in fact be real. They are real because they exist, but they are not

00:17:18.420 always valid. So what does that mean? Your feelings are real, like I said, in that they exist. They are

00:17:26.080 actually there. And most of the time, by the way, you did not expressly ask them to be there and you might

00:17:32.360 even wish you didn't feel a certain way. And yet here you are unable to shake this feeling of doubt

00:17:38.040 or anger or sadness that is filling your mind. So yes, your feelings are real, but valid, according to

00:17:45.380 the dictionary, means having a sound basis in logic or fact, reasonable or cogent. So that means, of

00:17:53.480 course, that not all of our feelings are valid. They are not always based in logic or in fact. In fact,

00:17:59.980 very often, they are not based in logic or fact or reality or reason at all. They are not at all

00:18:06.220 reasonable sometimes. How many times? I mean, just think about your own life. You can probably think

00:18:11.120 in the last 24 hours, I certainly can. How many times we have been angry about something that didn't

00:18:17.340 actually solicit our anger? How many times, wives, have we blown up at our husbands, either internally,

00:18:24.520 that's very often where it happens, or externally, blowing up at our husbands for something that they

00:18:29.580 did not mean to do or really wasn't that big of a deal because we were really angry at something else.

00:18:35.260 But they just, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. And so we blow up at them,

00:18:39.980 either in our minds or outwardly. We get inordinately mad about something that really didn't solicit

00:18:46.480 our anger. I got inordinately mad the other week when my husband switched his phone to Bluetooth

00:18:55.460 in the middle of our conversation, which, yes, is mildly annoying, I will say. But is my utter

00:19:02.440 indignation toward him valid when I shut down and say, no, I'm not going to continue this conversation

00:19:07.800 anymore? Is that really valid just because he switched to Bluetooth because he got in his car?

00:19:12.720 No, it is an overreaction. It is petty. Now, you might say, you might say, but your feelings may

00:19:19.660 not really be about the Bluetooth. Maybe it's really about the fact that you don't feel

00:19:23.640 listened to or cared about. And maybe that feeling is valid. And maybe that could definitely be true.

00:19:30.860 But it could also be that I am a sinful and prideful person who doesn't like to be interrupted

00:19:36.860 or inconvenienced. That's also a very viable option. And it's that option that so many of

00:19:42.700 us are not willing to acknowledge or accept. That perhaps what we feel isn't valid because

00:19:49.720 there isn't a more profound or virtuous reason behind what we feel. And we might just feel this

00:19:56.140 way because we're self-centered. And we absolutely should consider this option. Why? Because Jeremiah

00:20:03.840 17 9 tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?

00:20:11.960 It is a lie of the current self-help age that who you are deep down is good and pure. And therefore,

00:20:20.560 whatever flows out of it, whatever feelings come from it are good and pure and worth following.

00:20:25.800 The Bible says that the heart is deceitful. It is desperately sick. Other versions say that it is

00:20:31.480 wicked. Who we are at the core of our being without the saving grace of Jesus Christ is a depraved

00:20:37.700 sinner. We are totally and utterly and absolutely depraved. Without Christ, every single thing that

00:20:45.920 we do and say, even if it looks and sounds righteous and is helpful in some way, is contaminated by our

00:20:53.780 depravity. We are wretches. Inside each of our natural selves is a corrupted, a callous, a self-obsessed

00:21:03.200 creature who wants nothing more than to worship itself. This is how Ephesians 2 describes all of us apart

00:21:10.380 from Christ. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course

00:21:17.060 of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of

00:21:22.820 disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body

00:21:32.140 and the mind and were by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. When we, before we came

00:21:39.520 to faith in Christ, carried out the desires of our bodies and the desires of our minds, these were not

00:21:46.000 good and pure desires. These were dark desires. These were selfish desires. These were desires worthy of

00:21:54.460 wrath. Ephesians 4, uh, Ephesians 4, 22 says we are to put off our old self, which belongs to your former

00:22:02.600 manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. The self apart from Christ is corrupt

00:22:11.280 through deceitful desires. This is why we cannot, should not follow our hearts. It will lead us astray.

00:22:18.840 This is why we should not accept all of our feelings is valid. Uh, but what about those of us? You might

00:22:25.580 be asking who are in Christ, who do have faith in Christ, who have put on the new self. We are new

00:22:31.060 creations. We have been given by grace through faith, a heart of flesh rather than our old heart

00:22:36.540 of stone. Can we trust our feelings? Can we rightly say that our feelings are valid? Well, no, because all of

00:22:44.400 us know very well that we still sin, we are being sanctified. We have guilt over our sin because of

00:22:51.800 the Holy Spirit. We are constantly crucifying our flesh, making no provision for it. But all of this,

00:22:57.940 this working out our salvation with fear and trembling is evidence that sin still exists in

00:23:03.560 our lives, even though it has no hold over us. We are no longer enslaved to it. And yet we are still

00:23:09.760 tempted by it. And we do still fall into it every day. Therefore, our hearts can still deceive us.

00:23:17.580 But in Christ, we now have the strength to battle that deception with God's word and the power of

00:23:23.000 the Holy Spirit. We have the wisdom to discern what feelings are valid and which feelings are not.

00:23:30.640 And so to assess which feelings are valid and which feelings are not, we ask ourselves,

00:23:35.080 number one, why do we feel this way? And number two, is this desire glorifying God?

00:23:41.920 So assessing our feelings does take a level of introspection, but ultimately we weigh our feelings

00:23:48.500 against God's word and feelings that do not glorify God according to his word should not be validated.

00:23:55.080 They should not be given into, they should not be given an excuse for or a justification for.

00:24:00.340 Uh, back to Ephesians, Ephesians 4 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and

00:24:08.500 slander be put away from you along with all malice. We know from this passage, several passages,

00:24:14.540 even the Sermon on the Mount that God cares about feelings. God cares about the heart. God cares about

00:24:21.300 the desires that flow out of the heart. This is talking about the feelings associated with in

00:24:27.060 Ephesians 4 31 feelings associated with, uh, most typically with our interpersonal relationships.

00:24:32.420 This is asking us to put away resentment, jealousy, covetousness, the divisive feelings that cause

00:24:38.860 petty arguments with our spouses and friends, the discontentment and insecurity that makes us wish

00:24:44.460 bad things for other people. This passage is saying, put that away from you. You are now in Christ and

00:24:50.520 those emotions, those feelings have no place in your life. This doesn't mean of course,

00:24:54.920 that we can't be angry over injustice. Jesus certainly was when he flipped the tables. God

00:24:59.860 certainly is angry over injustice. In fact, Psalm 4 4 says this, be angry and do not sin a ponder in

00:25:07.620 your own hearts on your beds and be silent. Ephesians 4 26 says this, be angry and do not sin. Do not let

00:25:15.360 the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. I have definitely gone against this.

00:25:22.560 I have definitely gone to bed angry. And yet the Bible says doing so gives an opportunity to the

00:25:28.320 devil. And we can probably imagine what that is, uh, to snowball our feelings into resentment,

00:25:33.420 which is sin. And may encourage us to act on our anger, which is sin. So in a culture that tells us

00:25:39.300 that all of our feelings are valid and therefore should be followed. The Bible is saying, no, they will

00:25:45.620 lead you astray. Don't follow your feelings. Follow Jesus. Subject your feelings to Christ.

00:25:52.480 Second Corinthians 10 5 says we are to take every thought captive to obey Christ. Take every thought

00:25:59.580 captive. We don't just, we're not neutral with our thoughts. We're not, uh, apathetic with our

00:26:05.400 thoughts. We take them captive and we give them to Christ. We make them obey Christ. That takes effort.

00:26:11.840 That takes work. Uh, before we validate our feelings, we should lay them down at Christ's

00:26:17.220 feet and ask him to tell us what is true. Our feelings do not reveal what is true about ourselves

00:26:25.140 or the world around us. God does. And he may at times use emotion to help us discern and decide

00:26:32.560 things. But these emotions must always, always be subjected to what his word says. So that was all

00:26:39.800 under point number one in that your feelings are not always valid. Number two, while your capacity

00:26:48.720 to feel is God given, your feelings are not God given. Not all of your individual feelings are God

00:26:56.440 given. The dreams you have for your life are not always God given. Your goals are not always God

00:27:02.280 given. That feeling of what you're supposed to do in life may not be God given. Uh, they may be,

00:27:08.360 they may be, but maybe not, which is why they are weighed, uh, with prayer and against the truth

00:27:15.400 of scripture. This means that we cannot use our feelings as justifications for all that we do.

00:27:22.500 I have used, and I have seen other people use feelings to excuse sin more times than I can count.

00:27:29.120 How many times have I heard people, or did I hear people in college and heard myself say

00:27:33.000 in certain parts of college, I don't feel convicted about this. So it must be okay.

00:27:37.880 Or God wouldn't give me this feeling if this weren't right. You have heard girls say this about

00:27:44.180 a dating a guy that they know that they're not supposed to date, or that's clearly, uh, they're

00:27:49.300 not supposed to date because they're not a Christian or they don't treat them well. You've heard people

00:27:52.380 say this about having sex before marriage or getting drunk or all of the things in life that feel good

00:27:57.820 in the moment. Because people don't feel badly about it, uh, we assume, people assume that it

00:28:03.620 must not be that big of a deal to God. They say, if this is wrong, God would give me the feeling that

00:28:09.680 it's wrong. And God is like, well, it's written right here. Like, I'm not making you guess what

00:28:16.720 holiness looks like. Like I, I've given you that wisdom, uh, through my word. And we're like, no,

00:28:23.780 no, no, no, no, no. It must just be our feelings. Our feelings must be the ultimate authority. We

00:28:29.120 have probably all been there about something at some point. I know I have it. It's dangerous. It

00:28:34.280 is sinful. It is prideful. It is damaging. It is wrong. This is also where we get the danger of

00:28:41.020 special revelation of saying that, uh, God told me this, or God told me that if it doesn't align

00:28:48.220 with scripture, God did not say it. God did not say it to you or anyone else. If it does not align

00:28:54.480 with his word, then he didn't say it. Uh, God does not contradict himself. When we don't subject our

00:29:02.520 feelings to God's word, we end up following ourselves, not Jesus. So that means we are

00:29:07.780 worshiping the God of self, not the God of scripture. The God of self leads to bondage, to sin,

00:29:14.100 and ultimately to spiritual death. The God of scripture leads to bondage, to righteousness

00:29:20.020 and spiritual life. Again, some feelings may indeed be God given and they should be assessed

00:29:27.640 using scripture and prayer and the wisdom of godly people who have gone before us. And if we are

00:29:32.820 seeking earnestly to make wise decisions, knowing the decision that we are about to make, it's not a

00:29:38.860 sinful one. All we can do is put one foot in front of the other in obedience to Christ, uh, obsessing

00:29:45.620 over our feelings to make decisions will leave us frustrated and confused. So number three, the third

00:29:53.140 thing that is not true about this feelings or valid sentiment is that all of your feelings need to be

00:29:59.340 extensively addressed and assessed. That is not true. This is where our culture's obsession with therapy

00:30:07.320 comes in. Now, let me say, I am someone who has greatly benefited from Christian counseling. It

00:30:13.960 was a Christian counselor after college who told me that my unhealthy eating patterns would kill me.

00:30:19.140 Premarital counseling was hugely beneficial for my husband and me. So, uh, my husband also,

00:30:24.680 he benefited from counseling, uh, on his own after college. So this is not saying there's not a place

00:30:32.080 for counseling. They're very well may be praise God, praise God for wise and Christ like counselors,

00:30:38.640 but, but we can seek godly counsel without going to a counselor. Sometimes it depends. It depends on

00:30:48.060 your particular situation. And I can't go through every single variable that would lead you perhaps to

00:30:53.760 a professional counselor, but our default doesn't always have to be a professional counselor. We can get

00:31:00.000 wise counsel without a professional counselor. And actually this is the place should be the place

00:31:06.320 in most areas of the local church. The local church should be stepping up though. Of course we know it

00:31:13.160 doesn't always, we should be able to seek out older women in our churches from which we can gain wisdom,

00:31:18.780 uh, rather than our default, always being professional psychotherapy, even though sometimes that

00:31:25.580 definitely may be necessary. Uh, Titus two, three through four says this older women, likewise are

00:31:31.720 to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good. And so

00:31:38.160 train the young women to love their husbands and children. Older women in the church are to be

00:31:43.620 training young women and teaching us in what is good. And we younger women should be seeking that out,

00:31:50.180 not just for the purpose of sharing our problems, but for the purpose of modeling our lives after

00:31:55.420 godly women and working alongside them for the gospel. As Rachel Jankovic explained on Friday's

00:32:01.240 episode. And most of us, me included, don't always seek that out. And there have been seasons of my

00:32:07.020 life where I have very diligently and seasons of my life where I haven't. And of course, this can

00:32:11.600 include, include your family members. This can include older sisters and mothers. This doesn't have

00:32:16.580 to be a stranger or someone that you don't know in the church, but these people are without getting

00:32:21.960 paid and without having the title are counselors and can serve as sources of godly wisdom and help

00:32:29.380 for us. And let us not forget that Jesus himself in Isaiah 9, 6 is called, uh, it says his name shall

00:32:36.660 be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. Jesus is our counselor and he

00:32:45.400 is totally and completely competent to comfort us, to lead us in what is true and to give us peace.

00:32:51.280 Remember, there are people around the world, Christians around the world who do not have

00:32:55.740 access to professional counseling like we do in America. And that's fine. We have a gift of,

00:33:00.980 we have a gift of common grace, just like we have a lot of things in America that people in other

00:33:06.060 parts of the world don't have. But there are people whose only option is to rely on Jesus as their

00:33:11.500 counselor. And he is totally and completely competent to supply us with everything we need. That doesn't

00:33:18.440 mean that we shouldn't be thankful for, or that we shouldn't use professional counseling. Maybe,

00:33:23.960 maybe when the depth of our trauma or confusion or mental illness or disordered thinking or behavior

00:33:28.840 is beyond, uh, maybe what we can, uh, get from someone that we know in an unprofessional or not a

00:33:37.800 professional capacity. And I also believe, and I know there are a lot of people in the church who might

00:33:42.920 disagree with me on this, but I also believe that medicine for serious depression and anxiety are

00:33:48.520 gifts of common grace that some people really need. I did an episode titled depression and suicide

00:33:54.380 that you can go back and listen to. I've gotten a lot of emails from you guys who have struggled

00:33:59.260 with depression and suicidal thoughts who have, uh, who have validated that that episode was indeed

00:34:06.240 true. So I don't want you to think I'm speaking from a place of a lack of empathy. I have talked to a lot

00:34:12.260 of people who have been in these situations. And like I said, I too have been to counseling. So I'm

00:34:17.340 not just speaking from my own experience, but also the experiences of others. I hope this doesn't

00:34:22.280 sound like I'm bashing all therapy or not being compassionate, but the point is feelings are not

00:34:30.420 always valid. Therefore they are not always God given or really because they are not always God given.

00:34:35.380 And therefore we do not always need to spend a thousand dollars or a thousand hours assessing

00:34:42.200 them. Uh, we need God's wisdom. We need his guidance. We need his discernment. We need his

00:34:47.820 word. We need to subject ourselves to him and his direction, no matter what we feel. And sometimes we

00:34:52.340 need to just forget about ourselves. Like sometimes we need to just stop taking stock of every single

00:34:58.440 thing. We feel like sometimes we need to just say, you know what? I know that that thought's not

00:35:04.600 glorifying. So here, Jesus, take it captive and let me obey you. Sometimes we don't need to spend

00:35:10.660 hours and hours assessing what we feel and how we are and how we tick. Sometimes we just need to

00:35:17.200 forget about those things and we need to go out into the world and help someone else. We need to think

00:35:22.360 about someone else for a change. We need to encourage someone else rather than constantly

00:35:26.380 a feeding, motivating mantras to ourselves. We need to think about the needs and the, the,

00:35:32.860 the wants of other people before. And instead of we constantly think about ourselves. Sometimes

00:35:39.720 self-obsession and constant introspection actually makes matters worse. Uh, most lies like the lie that

00:35:48.800 your feelings are valid sounds really good. It sounds compassionate, sounds empathetic. It might even

00:35:54.960 because of that sound biblical, but the most effective lies of our culture always sound good.

00:36:03.860 They always have at least a bit of truth in them to where they sound not just enticing, but righteous.

00:36:12.020 Uh, these are the most effective lies are of Satan and they're the exact kind of lies with which he

00:36:19.500 tempted Eve in the garden of Eden because Satan might be clever, but he is not creative.

00:36:24.960 Uh, he said to the woman, this is Genesis three, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree

00:36:34.040 in the garden? Which of course we know from the previous passage that that's not what God said.

00:36:39.600 So Satan said, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to

00:36:45.660 the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the

00:36:51.140 fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die.

00:36:56.220 So she remembered, she remembered what God actually said and she corrected Satan, but Satan had already

00:37:02.280 implanted in her mind, just a bit of truth and twisted it. But the certain set, the serpent said

00:37:07.660 to the woman, you will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened

00:37:14.280 and you will be like God knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree, that the tree

00:37:19.520 was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make

00:37:25.920 one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he

00:37:32.320 ate. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves

00:37:38.060 together and made themselves loincloths. And we could spend hours. That's like, I love the book

00:37:45.060 of Genesis. We could spend hours and hours talking about that one passage, the book of Genesis, my

00:37:49.080 favorite book of the Bible, because it is this amazing and heart-wrenching story of mankind rejecting

00:37:56.860 the God who created and loved them. And you see so utterly and so tangibly our need for redemption in

00:38:04.520 Christ. Our feelings even have to be redeemed because we are believing the same lies that we believed in

00:38:11.680 the garden of Eden, especially, especially the lies that are given particularly to women. And one of these

00:38:18.540 lies is that your feelings, all of them are valid, that they are all God given and that they all need to

00:38:25.480 not just be assessed, but also be followed. The Bible says that is a lie. There is a better way because while

00:38:33.280 your emotions, the yoke of your emotions and the burden of your emotions is difficult and heavy,

00:38:39.780 Jesus says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Follow me while your feelings are confusion or your

00:38:48.200 feelings are confusing. Your feelings are chaotic. I am a God of peace. I am a God of clarity. I am a God

00:38:54.220 of order. My truth is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Follow me instead of the hearts that flow

00:39:00.220 out of your desperately sick and deceitful heart and praise God that we get the relief of not

00:39:06.680 following ourselves. We don't know what we're doing. We don't know what we're doing. Uh, but God does.

00:39:12.540 Thankfully, that's why we don't have the obligation. We don't have the burden of following our feelings,

00:39:19.900 which so often lead us astray. So this is good news. Praise God for showing us a better way. How many

00:39:26.820 times in the Bible does God describe us as sheep, as not knowing which way we're going without the

00:39:31.780 shepherd? And we have a good shepherd. We have a good shepherd who leads us in the right direction,

00:39:38.480 in the truthful direction, in the peaceful direction, in the ordered direction. And we can

00:39:43.000 absolutely trust him and rely on him and follow him completely and blindly. Amen. I am so thankful for

00:39:50.840 that. Okay. That's all I have today. We will be back here on Wednesday, right? Yeah. We'll be back

00:39:57.980 here on Wednesday. I kind of forgot which day Christmas was. Christmas is next week. We'll be

00:40:03.140 back here and I will see you then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 16, 2019

Ep 198 ｜ All the Feels

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