Episode #345 When Angst Meets Grace – How to Bring Your Feelings to God

Hey, friend. Have you ever felt angsty? I was trying to come up with a better emotional word for this and angst is the best one that I landed on. You feel unsettled within yourself. Maybe there's some anger, maybe there's some stress, maybe there's just some unsettledness. Where you don't feel calm and you don't feel at peace, and you have this tumultuous mix of emotions going on inside. Well, if you can relate to that, and especially if you're going through something like that right now, I wanna encourage you that God meets us in those moments, too.

I'm gonna read for us a passage from Psalm 55, and my encouragement for you is to listen to the wrestle. Listen to the struggle that the psalmist has as he's describing how he's feeling. Because God doesn't flinch. Even our messy mixed up emotions aren't too much for him. And this gets to be a place, even in angst, where we draw near to him. Where we experience God as close and active and personally involved in caring for us. So I'll start in Psalm 55 verse one:

“Give ear to my prayer, O God,
    and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!

2 

Attend to me, and answer me;
    I am restless in my complaint and I moan,

3 

because of the noise of the enemy,
    because of the oppression of the wicked.
For they drop trouble upon me,
    and in anger they bear a grudge against me.

4 

My heart is in anguish within me;
    the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

5 

Fear and trembling come upon me,
    and horror overwhelms me.

6 

And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
    I would fly away and be at rest;

7 

yes, I would wander far away;
    I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah

8 

I would hurry to find a shelter
    from the raging wind and tempest.”

Did you hear how much emotion? The visuals even of all of this overwhelming angst and the longing to flee. The longing to somehow get away from it. Oh, that I could just fly away, that I could escape this. I know that we can relate to this. Maybe not today, but for sure in some season you have felt this way.

“Oh, that I could just get away. That I could just have relief.”

I can relate to this when I think of the angst and the oppression that is happening in the world right now. There is so much wickedness that seems to be popping up all over the place. Give ear to my plea. God, don't hide yourself. I am restless. I need your answers. Because of the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression, because of the trouble and the anger and the anguish. Oh, I God, I just wanna get away from this.

And so if you are in that place today, I want to encourage you that God is here. He cares about what you're going through. He is not disinterested or dispassionate about the pain that you are walking through. And as the psalmist says, “I would hurry to find a shelter.” The good news for us is that we have a shelter, and that is in God's presence. Even in the midst of what you're walking through and the mix of emotions and uncertainty and unrest, God is our shelter. He is our safe place.

And so I wanna read for us a few verses where God describes himself as our refuge and our shelter. Even when we're not even sure of all the feelings that are going on inside of us, we can still turn to God and find rest and safety in him.

Psalm 18:2 “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

Nahum 1:7 “The Lord is good. A stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him.”

Psalm 9:9 “The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed. A stronghold in times of trouble.”

And Psalm 119:114 “You are my hiding place and my shield, I hope in your word.”

No matter what you're going through right now with all of the angst, take it to God. You don't have to sanitize how you're feeling or clean it up before you draw near. Come to him in angst and ask him to be a refuge.

This reminds me of how I try and meet my boys in their emotions and sometimes they just need to scream and so we scream together. And sometimes they need to punch a pillow and so I hold it for them. Or they need to talk out what they're feeling and be held and comforted in it.

God knows what you need today.

And here's a question that you can bring to him to continue that conversation:

God, what could it look like to bring to you my unsettled emotions today?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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