Emotions

I read an article recently that was very good, but I had a quibble with the statement that “emotions have no moral value”. I understood what was being said, but it is not quite right. I think it depends on where the emotion comes from. I have just read in Zechariah where God says that he has a “great passion” for his people. God is good, so that emotion must be good.

Some human emotions can be good. If I am angry at injustice because the Holy Spirit stirred me, that emotion is good. The compassion that the Good Samaritan felt for the wounded man was good. We need to get better at experiencing that kind of emotion and responding to it with positive actions. On the other hand, the glee that some of the crowd felt when Jesus was dying on the cross was probably stirred up by the bad spirits they carried, so it was evil. Some emotions can be good or evil, depending on where they come from.

Then again, emotions that come out of hurts that have been done to me by people in the past, or trauma that I have experienced as a child, just tell me what is happening within me and how my memories of those events are affecting me now. These emotions are unpleasant or uncomfortable, but they are not good or evil. They are neutral; just an indication of who I am, although what they are teaching me something about myself which might be true.

The most important point is that our emotions tell us nothing about our value in God’s sight. We were all created good, in his image. His heart is always towards us for our good, no matter how we are feeling.