This devotion comes to us from our Deaconess, Sarah Newton:

I don’t know about you, but these days of quarantine have been a testament to the scope of feelings people can feel in a short amount of time. I came across an image with the words, “In one day I’m scared, I’m worried, I’m hopeful, I’m overwhelmed, I’m tired, I’m wondering, I’m listening, I’m waiting, I’m anxious, I’m calm, I’m bored, I’m stressed, I’m lonely, I’m trusting, I’m tense, I’m afraid, I’m grateful…” and the list went on. It resonated! And it made me think of the psalms.

So often, when we think of the psalms, our minds associate them with peacefulness. And why not? The psalms are filled with imagery of green pastures, flowing streams, restoration and quietness. Or at least, Psalm 23 is. Certainly this oft memorized, oft quoted biblical verse holds great comfort for us. You can practically see David now, strumming his lute as his sings by the stream, surrounded by fluffy white lambs. Yet if we reduce the book of Psalms to this picture, we are sorely mistaken.

The Psalms are filled with an incredible variety of emotion, of which peacefulness is just one.   Few other places in Scripture are filled with such a real, raw outpouring of the human experience. Read through, and you will find praise, joy, hope, and comfort, but you may also be surprised to find such feelings as loneliness, anger, shame, vengefulness, and hatred. Even the 23rd Psalm may well have been composed on a dark night while the shadows of death encroached. All kinds of things that people of faith aren’t supposed to feel, let alone express. Yet they did. And we do.

Thankfully, God is not deterred by our ideas of what we’re supposed to be and do. True, there was only one man who could faithfully uphold God’s command, “in your anger do not sin”; none of the rest of us can flip tables with outrage and zeal that are purely holy in nature. But the one who ‘perceives my thoughts from afar,’ who knows what I will say ‘before a word is on my tongue,’ knows that I need a place to go with all the feelings I feel (Ps. 139:1-4). He gives us example upon biblical example, the greatest of which is Jesus, to teach us what to do with our fears and our hopes; our anger and our contrition; our shame and our joy. With all the saints, we are welcomed to cry out. “To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul (Ps. 25:1).” He promises to hear us. He even intercedes for us in the Person of His Son, who knows what it is to be human.

So whatever you may be feeling today and in the days to come, may you find comfort in the waiting ear of your Heavenly Father. And may you be comforted, too, in the knowledge that your Savior felt all the feelings too.

“Come, my soul, with ev’ry care, Jesus loves to answer prayer; He Himself has bid thee pray, Therefore will not turn away.”
LSB 779:1

Dear Father in heaven, You have blessed us with emotions great and small. Thank You for this great gift! Help us to use even our feelings to serve You and our neighbor. Forgive us for the times we give our emotions misplaced power and priority in our lives, and help us to remember Your gracious invitation to take all of our joys and cares to You in prayer. In Jesus’ name, Amen.