Meeting God in Your Vulnerability

The human experience is layered with emotions that can draw us near to God. Part of being human is experiencing emotions like worry, fear, sadness, and anxiety at times. Given the brokenness of this world and life’s difficulties, uncertainties, trauma, and pain, it’s impossible to escape such emotions.

It is the God we turn to in our painful emotions that makes all the difference. Emotions tell us of our need for God. Because how would we know we needed God’s help, strength, comfort, protection, peace, and rest if we didn’t first experience an emotion that told us we needed those very things? When we experience worry, we realize we need God’s peace; when we experience fear, we need God’s help; when we experience despair, we need God’s comfort; and so on. In this world we will have troubles (John 16:33). And we lean on God when troubles come, when worries come, when fears come. We shouldn’t try to bypass these emotions, or we run the great risk of missing out on an abiding, deep relationship with our Father.

Instead of looking to God for help, we may attempt self-reliance. We may try to pacify our worries quickly on our own or try to numb them. But we don’t want to fall into the trap of robotically pushing past our emotions, because our emotions should lead us to God. Our human experience is the framework for our relationship with God, and the emotions we experience can lead to a growing intimacy and a real knowing of Him. If we stuff our feelings down or try to handle them in our own strength, our mental, physical, and spiritual health are at stake, as well as a genuine relationship with God.

In today’s verses from Psalms, we see that the key is to “look to Him for help” when we experience painful emotions. The psalmist, David, was experiencing fear, and by looking to God, he was freed from all his fears. Not only that, but he told us we will be radiant with joy when we look to God for help. What a contrast—from fear to radiant with joy! Only God can do that. Notice also how David wrote, “No shadow of shame will darken their faces.” Shame that comes from experiencing anxiety and fear can place us in bondage right along with the anxiety and fear. If we try to hide our worries instead of going to God, that can steal the very freedom we are seeking. There is no shame, ever, in needing God and seeking His help.

Allow your emotions to bring you truthfully and vulnerably to your Father. Embrace the intimacy that comes when you go to a holy, kind, and sovereign God to free you from all your fears, a God who shows compassion toward you in those moments, not condemnation.

Prayer

O Lord,

I am comforted today knowing that You walk with me in my human experience. You are already aware of what I am going through. You are already aware of my emotions. You know them and see them because You made me and know me.

Freedom from all my fears is found in You. You hear when I call to You; You do not turn Your face away when I experience emotions because of life’s difficulties and pain.

Please guard me from the lie that I can handle my fears and worries in my own strength. Please guard me from suppressing or bypassing my emotions. I trust in You, not myself, to relieve my worries.

When I look away from my fears and to You, I am radiant with joy! How I see Your glory and give You all the glory, my loving Lord. Amen.