Can We Be Honest?

I’ve always been an emotional person. I remember having intense emotions for most of my life. Middle school was rough. I was all over the place.

Up and down.
Up and down.
Up and down.

I was exhausted from being around me. I could only imagine how my poor family felt living with the emotional tornado that was preadolescent Anthony. My dad would say it was because of the horrormones. Good one dad.

As I age, I don’t find myself getting less emotional, but I do find myself bottling up my emotions. Healthy. I know. My dream of becoming the cranky old, tattooed man who yells at kids to get off his lawn is finally manifesting itself into the cosmos.  

I notice that my wife has to pry stuff out of me. I used to be the first one to share how I was feeling. I used to be able to process how I was feeling before I felt anything! But now it takes me several days, if not weeks, to process how I’m feeling.

Lately, I feel as though I am numb to myself which I find very odd. I have also noticed that I have become a bit closed off and numb towards God.

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day. He was processing some struggles in his life. He told me he always prayed about his struggles, but he wasn’t getting any answers. I asked him what his prayers looked like. He said he always thanked God for the blessings in his life, he thanked Jesus for what he did for us on the cross and asks God for strength and yada, yada, yada. Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. Don’t get me wrong. Those are all good things to pray about. They really are.  But I noticed that his prayers weren’t matching how he was talking to me. His prayers didn’t coincide with the frustration and angst I was hearing in his voice. Then I asked my friend a question.

“Have you been honest with God about how you feel?”

There was a pause.

Then he said, “Hmm, I don’t think I have.”

I asked, “Why not?”

He said, “I donno, maybe I am afraid to be honest. I don’t know why? He already knows what I am feeling.”

All he needed was a little permission to be honest with his Maker.

A few days later I asked him how his honesty session with God went. He said there was yelling, cursing and tears. He said it was awesome. It was just what he needed.

Later that week my friend and I met up with some other guys and we processed the idea of being honest in our prayers. One guy said our prayers are typically like social media posts, we only show God the good and sexy stuff. That made me laugh.

But seriously, why are we so afraid to be honest with God? Have you read the Psalms? They are as honest as you can get. If you aren’t familiar with the Psalms, they are a collection of ancient prayers that God’s people have been singing and praying for generations to express the totality of the human experience to their Creator. Here are just a few crazy prayers in there:

Psalm 69:23–24
Let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually. Pour out your indignation upon them and let your burning anger overtake them.

Psalm 140:9–11
As for the head of those who surround me, let the mischief of their lips overwhelm them! Let burning coals fall upon them! Let them be cast into fire, into miry pits, no more to rise! Let not the slanderer be established in the land; let evil hunt down the violent man speedily!

Psalm 58:8–9
Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun. Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns, whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!

Seriously, this stuff is in the Bible. What do we do with passages like these besides get anxious and uncomfortable? Are they there to justify hatred and violence? I don’t think so.

What if these passages are there to show us what honesty with God looks like?  Perhaps the author was so filled with rage or had been so deeply wounded by a close friend that these were the only words he could find to give justice to how he was feeling? What if these passages are giving us permission to be honest with God?

Have you ever been so mad with someone or so hurt by someone that you wished that person was a snail that dissolved into slime? Sure, you have. I know I have. Now, I am not encouraging us to be crass or disrespectful to our Maker or to encourage us to daydream about our enemies dissolving in salt.  

I want to give you permission to be honest with God about the stuff you have been holding onto for far too long. We have all been hurt by life. We all have unresolved conflicts in our lives. We all have junk we are trying to hide from God and ourselves. My question for you is what are you going to do with that stuff? How can we be released from the anger, hurt, and fear that so easily imprisons us?

Psalms like the ones above are critical to our healing and restoration. Notice how the Psalmist takes his feelings to God. Not to his Twitter feed or his gossipy friends.

He takes them to God.

If we don’t confront and release the anger, pain, and disappointment that we have bottled up in our souls it will eventually leak out into our lives. Like an oil spill off the gulf coast, it will slowly coat and suffocate any good and healthy relationships in our lives. Sadly, I know this from my own personal experience.

So, what is keeping you from being honest with God?

I pray that you can find the courage to take a step towards honesty this week. As you do so, I pray that Jesus meets you in your mess. I pray that you begin to experience glimpses of freedom and healing as you invite Jesus into the darkest places of your soul. As you take a step in the direction of honesty, I pray that you begin to experience the abundant life Jesus has already secured for you.

Grace and peace ‘til we rise in glory.