You try and love your wife passionately: I love you. [Laughs] There's something wrong with that picture. The words sound okay, but it's more should be like the Italians: ooh I looove you! You know? Now that's more like it, now we've got the expression, and the warmth, and the hands, and whoa! Yay! Now that looks more real! So emotions are part of what God has given to us. In John 11:35, Jesus wept. He openly expressed His emotions, He cried, He rejoiced, He was angry, He was stirred, He was grieved, He had all kinds of emotions. He was lonely. [Laughs] He was burdened. He had many emotional experiences, and we have them too. If you're a human being, you will have all of those things. You will have sadness and happiness, you will have times when you're puzzled, disturbed, lost, don't seem to know where to go, feel heavy, struggling. This is being a human! But sometimes we think when we get into church that all that will just change, and so we get into a church culture and then, well we're not authentic anymore, because now we're trying... Well praise the Lord brother, praise the Lord, ra-ra-ra! All going well - and you know that life's falling apart, absolute mess.
We just bury all the grief, bury all the feelings, and try and control the emotions. Well when you do that, you dishonour yourself, because God gave these things to you. Now we're not to be controlled by our emotions, or led by our emotions; we're to be led by the spirit of God. But to be authentic in your relationship with God, you must identify what you feel, because it tells what's going on in your heart, and if you're going to talk with God, you've got to talk from your heart; I feel Lord, I'm struggling with this, Lord I'm afraid. Lord, I just am so sad, I feel overwhelmed by this thing. We've got to learn to be authentic with God, authentic with Him. David was like that, poured his soul out; when I remember these things, I pour out my soul, and there was a weeping as he talked about the reality of his life, and he just expressed it passionately to the Lord. After he's expressed his emotions, he was then able to stir faith; but if you don't express your emotions, it's very hard to access what's going on inside your life.
So often in church, people control emotions, shut things down; oh, you shouldn't feel like that! Oh, shouldn't I? I guess not. Inside, I feel very angry - well you shouldn't feel angry! Well the Bible doesn't say that; the Bible says: be angry, but don't sin; but it's translated: you shouldn't feel like that. Well I'm sorry, but I do, I feel really ticked off, and I don't mind telling you. You understand? Now that's more authentic than saying: oh praise the Lord brother! [Laughter] Going home, you know, like cats when you annoy them. [hiss] Like that. That's what some people are like on the inside, a lot of the time, because they don't know what to do with their emotions. Can I tell you I'm angry? Can I tell you I'm really depressed? I'm not sure, so I'll hide it. Can you understand? So it requires an environment where it's okay to be human, it's okay to be human, human being, not a human doing, a human being, have feelings.
So you see me up here, so it's like praise the Lord, ra-ra. You don't see me other days! But there's emotions and feelings, and things that are poured out to God, and struggles, and trying to work out what to do, trying to listen for the voice of God, when there's so many other voices. This is reality of life, so if we're going to be authentic it doesn't mean you're a perfect parent, it doesn't mean you're a perfect husband. In fact I've known people who were attracted to the faith in a Christian couple, because they saw them have an argument, and they saw them make it up. They said I want some of that, because that, that is accessible to me. But being a perfect little Christian, that's just - ooh you're weird, I can't relate to that at all. You understand? That was the problem with the Pharisees.