NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
We’ve been asking people ‘what hurts you the most?’ and one of the most common type of responses come under the heading ‘negative emotions’. This covers answers like ‘feeling worthless’, ‘depression’, ‘worrying about the future’ or ‘regrets from my past’. These are the kind of answers where people don’t reveal the cause of their emotional pain. It could be that the underlying issue is one of the other categories or it could be that the thing that genuinely ‘hurts the most’ is not a specific issue but the emotional distress itself. For example one person wrote ‘feeling low and not knowing why’. Either way it’s not surprising to many that with this kind of responses would be on the increase.
Here are some key statistics:
Overall it’s the most common issue to come up, over 20% of all responses are about negative emotions. It’s also been on the rise since we began asking this question in 2011.
Men are more likely to give this kind of response than women.
Over one in four of men aged 18-34 gave a response that sits in this category.
The only age categories where this isn’t the most common issue raised is 66 + and those aged 0 -17.
Christianity offers unique resources to help people deal with the effects and causes of negative emotions, below is an article I wrote in 2011 about the issue.
I was overcome with emotion. In just one day more than a hundred local people had taken the time to let our church know their very deepest hurts. I was clutching dozens of these handwritten cards, detailing terrible pain and sorrow. We initially wondered whether anyone would respond. Would people share their deepest hurts even if anonymously with strangers? The verdict was clear: they were hurting and indeed ready to share.
Many people would consider the Church and Jesus to be irrelevant to everyday life. However, there are two facts which should cause us to question whether this is so. Firstly everybody hurts and secondly Jesus has some utterly unique things to say about deep sorrow and pain that are worthy of careful consideration. Over the past hundred years there have been immense improvements in health care, government, technology and science. Many things have changed for the better but it is worth asking the question: are we any better at being happy? After many billions of pounds spent on new discoveries have we learnt anymore about the secret of happiness? It is time to consider the ancient wisdom of the most famous person who has ever lived: Jesus Christ.
It is true that many people are simply very, very sad. In our survey people wrote things like fear, lacking confidence, loneliness, a sense of failure, depression and anxiety. One person wrote of how they were ‘struggling with feeling good enough’ while another found it incredibly hard to feel ‘truly beautiful and loved’. Many mentioned suffering immense cruelty at the hands of others.
There is an old saying which contains a very profound truth. The saying goes: Two men looked out from prison bars. One saw mud, the other stars.
It was the same prison and the same barred window but there was something different about the men. One appeared to possess a deep happiness that was not based on circumstance and could even look beyond the continuing ordeal to see beauty and perhaps to smile.
Many people are very cynical about the prospect of finding this kind of contentment, but one writer of the Bible says boldly ‘I have learned the secret of being content in every circumstance’. 1 How is it possible to have a fundamental kind of happiness not based on circumstances?
Firstly, feelings need to be put in their place. The Bible says something which is both shocking but also immensely helpful: ‘The heart is deceitful above all things’. 2 In other words our deepest emotions cannot be trusted. I think we all know this to be true. On a trivial level, I may ‘feel in my heart’ a real need to eat more chocolate but that doesn’t make the feeling correct. Equally I cannot trust my heart to be consistent because the very next day I know I may feel completely different about a situation. Being driven by our emotions can also lead us to break our moral principles, such as the wife who leaves her husband and family and says ‘I just wanted to be happy’. Our deepest emotions cannot be relied upon as a trustworthy guide for making important or even trivial decisions. Tragically many people are ruled by their emotions, slaves to how they feel. If feelings are allowed to dominate then negative emotions will never be overcome and the fundamental happiness or contentment that the Bible talks about will not be found.
Heal yourself with the truth
Feelings cannot be trusted to tell us the truth about ourselves. One person may feel very strongly that nobody loves them. Another feels that they are ugly and fat. Still another feels deeply anxious about what people will or do think about them. How do you overcome these sorts of feelings? You overcome them with the truth. Jesus once famously said “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free”. 3
Truth doesn’t automatically eliminate all negative emotions or eradicate clinical depression but it does helps us put feelings in their place and sets us free from any way that they may have an unhelpful hold over us. Truth also gives us reasons to be thankful, it opens our eyes to what we have to appreciate. I want you to consider three truths which once taken in deeply have the power to set us free.
Truth 1: There is a meaning and a purpose to the universe
The Bible grips its readers and tells them the amazing story of the universe. One of the things I love about the Bible is that it puts us in our place. We so easily slip into being simply self-focused, thinking about ourselves, making plans and perhaps only thinking about the small collection of people around us. The Bible shatters that view: it wakes us up out of our day-dream and tells us that we are in a great and epic story within which our lives are just one of many scenes. We are a walk-on part in something far greater, far grander than our imaginings can fathom.
Many people long to be a part of something bigger than themselves, like those who spend hours waiting around on film sets just to have a cameo role. The Bible says you are not the main character in the story of the universe: Jesus is. It’s ultimately his story but you can have a walk-on part. It’s liberating to be lost in the drama of a true story much bigger than you.
If on the other hand there is no meaning to the universe and your life doesn’t have any ultimate purpose then your pain and suffering and your tragedy are senseless and pointless. The Bible says there is hope because we all have a part to play in the unfolding story of the universe.
Truth 2: We are broken
Jesus taught a very radical view of human beings which may shock you. His message was that we are more evil than we ever feared but more loved than we ever dreamed. He consistently taught that all people are deeply flawed, broken and evil, yet also deeply loved and of immense value and worth. In my experience of talking with people about these issues I find that most people think they are ‘not that bad’ and ‘not that loved’ but instead ‘a fairly good person who is moderately loved’. The Bible says we are truly broken, helpless and rebellious but loved and valued beyond our wildest dreams. It’s an intoxicating mixture and believing both statements is the only way to be whole.
It is more than likely that you have never killed anybody but how would you feel if everything you ever thought was posted on a social networking website such as Facebook? The truth is we all think terrible selfish things. We do not see our brokenness when we compare ourselves to each other and if it is true that we are all sinful and broken then there is very little to be gained from making a comparison. The Bible says instead ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’. 4 When we see God’s perfection and look upon him, when we explore the person of Jesus, it is then we start to see how far we fall short.
Understanding our own brokenness is liberating. When we realise how deeply flawed and broken we have become, we are deeply humbled. And that is a great thing because it makes us thankful and grateful for everything. If you believe that you are a fundamentally good person, the danger is that you will forever feel the victim. The Bible says that we are all part of the problem and so rather than complain about every woe we should be thankful for every breath!
Our hurts often speak to us of the evil that is ‘inside’, not just the evil ‘out there’. As we progress through the topics in this book and look at other painful areas of our lives, in each one a further indicator of our own brokenness is revealed. Our pain is telling us that something is wrong – will you listen?
Truth 3: We are loved
The God of the universe made human beings not simply because he was feeling creative but because he desires our company. He wants you and has paid the highest cost to make it possible for you to have a restored relationship with him. He wants you to be his forever.
When we realise we are more loved than we ever dreamed, our deepest longing is satisfied. The person who knows the most about you, the person with the most love to give... loves you. One writer put it well when he said ‘God’s love for me is utterly realistic; and because he already knows the worst about me, no discovery can make him disillusioned about me, in the way I can become disillusioned about myself and others’. 5
Many people struggle to receive God’s love and believe that anybody could treasure them so highly. For some, love has become a word that they struggle to even comprehend.
I once heard someone say that the Bible is like a love letter to humanity. I think it’s more like a great story that draws you in and in reading it you discover to your surprise that you are a part of it. Imagine watching a great movie that tells the story of the costly sacrifice of a great hero on behalf of a mystery character. In the final scene the hero walks out of the screen and into your life; you discover he was saving you.
The message of Christianity humbles us and satisfies us. It has the power to overcome negative emotions. If we are not humbled we will always be disappointed with our lot and never be at peace. If we are not satisfied by God’s love we will never feel secure or significant. However, this liberating message can be misunderstood and so I want to briefly address three common misconceptions.
Misunderstanding number 1: Jesus is a happiness slot machine
Let us be clear Jesus is not a ‘happiness slot machine’. If you come to Jesus simply to make you happy then you are making happiness your God not Jesus. Come to him because you love him, come because you believe in him, come because you realise you owe him everything. And you will find peace and joy beyond your wildest dreams but only as a by-product. What matters most is not ‘Will Jesus make me happy?’ but ‘Is Jesus the truth?’ because only the truth can heal me and set me free.
Misunderstanding number 2: You can’t be happy and sad at the same time
Jesus was a fundamentally happy person but he was also called a ‘man of sorrows’. 6 His way always leads in the end to the greatest possible joy but sometimes it is a joy deferred. That’s why we read in the Bible that ‘for the joy set before him [Jesus] endured the cross’. He endured sorrow in the present for a joy and a happiness in the future. The path to joy often involves suffering and sorrow, but they can occur at the same time: ‘Happy are those who mourn for they will be comforted’ says Jesus in Matthew’s gospel 5:4. It’s possible to be happy and sad at the same time. It’s possible to be sad and yet still be fundamentally happy because you are healed by the truth.
Misunderstanding number 3: Christians are automatically more joyful than non Christians
Being a Christian doesn’t automatically make you joyful - unhappy Christians are a proof of that! Healing yourself with the truth makes you joyful but that doesn’t mean all Christians do it. The Bible talks of someone who ‘learned the secret of being content’. Everything needed for our contentment has been provided, but we still need to learn to use it. Even the man who learned the secret also said of one time in his life that ‘he despaired even of life itself’. 7
The ultimate question we all have to ask is not ‘will this make me happy’ but ‘is this the truth?’ That is the question that confronts all of us. That is the question that we will continue to explore.
I am grateful to Tim Keller’s excellent talk on Happiness found here (www.gospelinlife.com/the-search-for-happiness-6316.html) for some of the ideas found in this chapter.
1. Phillipians 4:12
2. Jeremiah 17:9
3. John 8:32
4. Romans 3:23
5. J I Packer, Knowing God
6. Isaiah 53:3
7. 2 Corinthians 1:8