Exodus 4:14-15 “Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “What of your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak fluently; even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do.” Today's episode reminds us that our emotions are not universally good or bad. It talks about how important it is to give yourself permission to feel all the different emotions. It also talks about why it is bad to stuff your emotions down and ignore them. It ends with an invitation to sit with the Lord have have a conversation. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Even God Gets Angry
Exodus 4:14-15 “Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “What of your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak fluently; even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do.”
In mentoring this month I have been teaching about our emotions and how our emotions aren’t universally good or bad. This is something that is easy to say and hard to believe. There are definitely some emotions we think are good, and some we think are bad. For instance, we don’t think it is “Christian-like” to be angry. When we are angry, we are probably not going to share that with our Christian friends because being angry isn’t what God wants from us. It isn’t just anger, either. There are a whole host of emotions that we struggle to reconcile with our faith.
We might think, how can I be disappointed in this situation when God has given me so much? How can I be angry when God has blessed me and my family? How can I be impatient when I know God’s timing is best? How can I be sad and grieve the loss of a loved one when I know they are in a better place now? Do you get the idea? We struggle to understand how we can feel what we are feeling. We also tend to feel guilty for some of our feelings, and then, on top of our original feelings, we now add guilt and shame to them.
Emotions can be tricky. I am not trying to say they are easy. I do believe we should let ourselves feel all of our emotions. Emotions are our body’s way of warning us of something. They bring something to our attention so we can deal with it. However, if it is an emotion we don’t like or that makes us feel uncomfortable, instead of exploring it to see what it is trying to tell us, we ignore it, stuff it down, and pretend it is not there. Stuffing our emotions down can be bad for a few reasons. One of them is that when we stuff our emotions down over time, they build up, kind of like the pressure in a volcano. Then, one day, they explode all over someone, and usually, it is not the person who gave you those unwanted feelings. It is usually some innocent bystander who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and said the wrong things. Unfortunately, I think we have all been in that situation at one time or another and we have all regretted it.
Another reason stuffing down our emotions can be bad is that if we ignore them, we can’t hear what they are trying to tell us. Our emotions might be telling us we need to get out of a situation, that something needs to change, or any number of other things, and yet if we ignore them, we are not getting any of their messages.
This can be avoided in part by not stuffing down our emotions. We can give ourselves permission to feel whatever feeling comes up. We can examine our feelings and see what they are trying to tell us. We can bring our feelings to the Lord and ask Him to help us understand our feelings. Our feelings are not bad. It is ok to feel all the different ranges of feelings. God felt a wide range of feelings, and so did Jesus. God is only good. If he felt angry, then how could anger be bad?
It says in the verse above that “the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.” Just before this verse, God was telling Moses that He wanted Moses to go to Egypt and free the Jewish people. Moses, like many of us, had lots of reasons why he was not qualified to do the job God asked him to do. What if they didn’t listen to him? What if they didn’t believe God had sent him? God gave Moses all sorts of answers to these questions. Every excuse Moses gave him, God responded with an answer. Then Moses continued to ask God to send someone else, and God got angry.
I love this because I can relate to God’s anger in this situation. It makes me think of my kids when I ask them to do something, and they have a million excuses for why they can’t. It doesn’t matter if you shoot down 1 million excuses; they will always have just one more. It is so frustrating, and I can imagine it would be even more frustrating for the Lord. I mean, He is God. He knows everything. If He says you can do something, you can do it. So, I can see why He would be angry that Moses didn’t trust him.
In verses 10 & 11, it says, “But Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” Then the Lord said to him, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” The Lord is telling Moses, I know you, I made you. I know what you can and can’t do. However, I am the Lord, and I can do all things. If God can make the deaf hear or the blind see, then don’t you think He could give you whatever you need to do whatever He is calling you to do? That is a lesson for another day, though.
Today we are talking about how God was angry at Moses. This is not the only time that God got angry in the Old Testament and Jesus also got angry in the New Testament as well. If you are struggling with shame or guilt for feeling certain emotions, look them up and see if they appear in the Bible. You could do a quick search on the internet for what verses in the Bible talk about anger, sadness, guilt, shame, joy, happiness, jealousy, or whatever emotions you are feeling. You will see you are not alone.
I did want to mention that although our emotions aren’t universally good or bad, our actions definitely can be. It is ok to be angry, it is not ok to sin in that anger. It is ok to be sad, it is not ok to sin in that sadness. We must learn to deal with our emotions in an appropriate way. It is not ok to stuff them down and not think about them. It is also not ok to act out of them and hurt others or to sin against God. There are many ways to feel our emotions and then deal with them without hurting others. This is something God can help us with if we take the time to invite Him into the situation. I invite you all to sit with the Lord this week and ask Him to show you where in your life you might be avoiding your feelings and then ask Him to help you change that. Ask Him to help you begin to deal with those feelings in a healthy way.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode. Lord, please help us to learn to feel all the feelings, even the uncomfortable ones. Help us to learn to process our feelings and emotions more appropriately and in a healthy way. Lord, help us to feel free to share our emotions with others so that we are not alone. Help us to release any feelings of guilt surrounding our emotions. We ask you to help us to not sin because of our emotions as well. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Our last session for the July mentoring series, Our Emotions is tonight. We will be going through the Bible and examining the wide range of emotions that God & Jesus felt. It is not too late if you would like to join us! If you want to see what it is all about before joining, just email me at catherine@findingtruenorthcoaching.com and I will send you the link to join the zoom tonight. I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day and may the favor and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in February 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “You must trudge the earth as I did, bringing hope and blessings to those I send you. You continue my incarnation. I feed you in my Eucharist each day. You must be me now.”