By Salt 106.5 Network Friday 2 Aug 2024EntertainmentReading Time: 3 minutes

Are your emotions something you see as a gift, a nuisance, or a flawed part of being human? Are they a God-given tool to help us understand the complexities of life?

Key Points:

• “You’re an emotional being created by an emotional God, so you have an emotional reaction to the world,” Jennie said.
• “It’s one thing to try to not feel sad, it’s another thing to feel it fully and be at peace…” Jennie said.
• Listen to this episode of UNDISTRACTED in the player above, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There’s a lot of different messages we get about “good” and “bad” emotions, “controlling” our emotions and even that it might be “unchristian” to feel certain emotions.

Jennie Allen is a renowned speaker, author and founder of the women’s IF:Gathering, leading thinking in the areas of personal growth and spiritual development. She believes it’s unhelpful to deny our feelings, and that in fact when we do, we’re undermining the potential of our relationship to God.

“You’re an emotional being created by an emotional God, so you have an emotional reaction to the world,” Jennie said.

“You probably have plenty of emotions,” Jennie told the UNDISTRACTED podcast.

“You’re an emotional being created by an emotional God, so you have an emotional reaction to the world.”

It’s not that we should be “obedient” to our emotions and allow our behaviour to be entirely shaped by them, but that we should use them as internal indicators.

“We demonise emotions because they’re inconvenient,” Jennie said.

“They aren’t fun to feel all the time, and yet they are part of the gifts that God has given us to navigate a very messy life.”

Studying the life of Jesus and how he related to people along with scriptural references to emotions, Jennie saw God’s nature of allowing people to feel fully what they were going through and offer comfort and connection through it.

We’re instructed in Romans to “rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn”.

“There’s something about these emotions that allow us connection to other people and connections to God in ways that nothing else can replace,” Jennie said.

Having been cynical about confronting the source of her emotions in the past, Jennie realised how much energy she was using “trying not to feel sad”.

“It’s one thing to try to not feel sad, it’s another thing to feel it fully and be at peace…” Jennie said.

“It exhausts us in ways we don’t even know,” Jennie said.

“It’s one thing to try to not feel sad, it’s another thing to feel it fully and be at peace with a little bit of sadness in your life.

“I won’t say that’s an easy process [to go through] but I do believe it’s very, very possible.”

Making the choice to address our emotions “changes everything. Physically, emotionally, relationally – it changes everything”.

Jennie’s book Untangle Your Emotions is out now.

Listen to the full episode of UNDISTRACTED with guest Jennie Allen in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.

All photos used with permission.