God’s Word… With Feeling

“I know how you feel.” We say this when we want to relate to someone else and the emotions of their experience. Its usefulness is largely dependent on its truthfulness. If said carelessly, it serves to belittle someone’s true feelings through a false sense of empathy. However, when this statement is spoken from a place of deep emotional understanding, it can serve to bring comfort and companionship through the struggles and successes of life. What if I told you that God’s word knows how you feel?

Now, I could understand some skepticism that an inanimate object like the Bible could relate to your very real and deep emotions. The truth of the matter is, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12 God’s word knows our hearts. Admittedly, some parts of the Bible touch our hearts more readily than others, but none more so than the Psalms.

In a very real way, the Psalms know how you feel. That’s actually the purpose of the Psalms, to express the many and various emotions that we experience as people who entrust our lives to God. Did you just wake up and find joy in the dawn of a new day? There’s a psalm for that. Did you just hang out with a bunch of faithful friends and have a wonderful time together? There’s a psalm for that. Maybe you feel afraid by the things happening around you and need to express your confidence in God. There’s a psalm for that. In fact, if you’re feeling hopeful, blessed, reverent, dejected, mournful, angry or even vengeful, yea, there’s a psalm for that.

So why have psalms for all these different emotions and situations? It’s easy to see God in the good times, when we are hopeful and things are mostly as they should be. There are plenty of psalms for those situations. It’s much harder to see God in the struggles, when life isn’t going well, when the walls are closing in, when all seems lost. The Psalms help us to know that we are not alone in times like that. Long ago, there were faithful followers of our Almighty God who experienced those feelings too. They had their doubts. They desired things that were not good. They acted on their impulses…

… and then they sang…

…and God received their song. After all, they were singing to Him. If you’re going to sing a song of sorrow, sing it to God. Singing a song of anger? Sing it to God. Singing a song of hopelessness? Sing it to God. He’ll even give you the words. Sometimes those words simply let us vent our emotions, but many times God gives us a glimmer of dawn in our dark night. He shows us how to have faith in the midst of the storm. He gives us the lyrics of love, grace, forgiveness and hope. Sing them.

Life is a song we sing together, and as followers of Jesus, the Psalms are the hymnal. So, let’s not be a bunch of soloists, vying for the attention of God. Rather, when one of us sings a psalm of joy, let us all raise up the chorus. When one of us weeps a song of woe, let our tears mix with our mournful tune. When one of us is afraid and confused, let us join our hearts together for the sake of the other. Then, we will be able to hear these words from God and from each other, “I know how you feel,” because we will feel it together.