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God of Sorrow
Is God emotional? Does He have feelings as humans do?
Does He feel our pain, and do we recognize His? In this post, we briefly explore the relationship between the emotional God and the human experience within the context of Abraham’s calling.
Living in a world overwhelmed with evil and darkness, it’s easy to assume the Creator is distant, unfeeling, or uncaring about the human dilemma. Was that how people felt in the early chapters of Genesis, especially during the days of Noah? It’s hard to imagine the heartbreak and sorrow God felt after the opening chapters of the Bible. It would have been easy for Him to quit and cancel the whole grand experiment. But despite the sorrow and disappointment, He didn’t quit. Instead, He designed a way, through Abraham and Sarah, to begin His great plan of redemption.
Did God share His hopes and dreams, even His emotions, with Abraham and Sarah through the promises He gave them? Did Abraham and Sarah share in His heartache for what the world had become? At a very basic level, I would say, “Yes, I believe He did, and I believe they did.” God walks with us through the redemption story – He shares in our life, and we share in His. This is the Gospel story that began with Abraham.
Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. Gen 12:1 NKJV
The Emotional God?
I think Scripture reveals that God has feelings and emotions, just like humans do. He feels compassion, jealousy, anger, and love. He even calls us friends, and sons and daughters. Have we considered that God might express His feelings to those who carry his image?
From the beginning, the plan was for the Creator and His family to live together in the garden. This family would care for the earth, raise children, and interact with the Creator and His heavenly court. In other words, humans would build a civilization that was natural and earthy, yet intimately integrated with the supernatural world of heaven.
Tragically, three major events occurred in the first eleven chapters of Genesis that exacted a heavy toll on humanity. As a result, we were left broken and stripped of our innocence. Satan became the “god” of this world, and we became his subjects. Wickedness, violence, and sexual perversion exploded, which was later followed by pride, arrogance, mystery religions, and a communal rebellion against the Creator. These outcomes resulted from the garden temptation, events leading up to the great flood, and the tower of Babel. Humanity had become willing accomplices in our own destruction. In the years leading up to the flood, God’s pain became unbearable:
The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. Gen. 6:5-6 (NLT)
Can we slow down and feel the emotional pain captured in that sentence above? Do we sense the Creator’s heart and recognize the deep sorrow He felt at what we had done to His world?
For many years, I didn’t connect the events in Genesis 1–11 with the pain and anguish they must have inflicted on the Creator. But when the Lord gave me a deeper glimpse into these events, His plan of redemption (beginning with Abraham) became richer, more personal, and integrated with the existing Biblical narrative. It became human and divine, filled with the characters’ emotions, my own feelings, and the little bit I could grasp of God’s thoughts and feelings.
Abraham-Let’s Not Miss the Connection
Against the background of the first eleven chapters of Genesis, God called a man out of Ur in order to restore the original garden vision, and that restoration story began with Abraham.
Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. Gen 12:1-2 NKJV
God chose a man and his wife to begin restoring what had been lost over the last 1900 years. If we examine the Scriptures carefully, we discover that God foreshadows this mysterious plan through a series of interwoven and expanding stories, promises, covenants, and prophetic revelations. It is a story of war and peace, mystery and revelation, slavery and deliverance, kings and peasants, and so much more. It is a story of great sorrow and great rejoicing, a story for the past, the present, and the future.
But most importantly, it is the story of a grieving Father who has lost fellowship with his children and then makes a way for them to return home. In essence, Genesis 12 introduces the story of redemption and restoration beginning with Abraham.
Carrying the Image
Did Abraham and Sarah carry the Creator’s heartbreak in their own story? In a limited fashion, I believe they did. Actually, I think we all carry a deep longing for what was lost and a hope for what can be. This touches on the heart of the Father calling us all home.
In the early years of my Christian life, I did not understand that there could be an emotional connection with God, because I didn’t think of him as someone having feelings. Although I was created in His image with feelings, I failed to connect the Creator to His image-bearers. In hindsight, I suspect that my emotions were shut down due to a traumatic childhood; therefore, I projected my brokenness onto my view of God–a tragic mistake.
The eye-opening passage for me was Psalm 136. In this Psalm, many mighty works of God are mentioned, and after each one, we find the phrase-
“his steadfast love endures forever“
I used to get irritated with this psalm because I felt the author kept repeating himself with the phrase, “his steadfast love endures forever.” But then, after about 30 years, I slowed down and let the passage penetrate my heart. “Oh, everything he does, even the difficult stuff, is an act of divine love flowing from the heart of an emotional, feeling, and connected God.” Something broke inside of me when that revelation finally came to rest in my soul. The steadfast love of a heavenly Father, who made a way for his children, still reaches out today with the same invitation to return home.
Redemption and Restoration
After years of considering this story, I’ve come to better understand who God is, how He thinks, and how He feels. A hidden benefit is discovering who I am-the person I used to be, who I am today, and the person I am becoming. This process takes time and perseverance, but eventually I’ve come to engage deeply with the Lord. He awakens and heals my emotions, and my spiritual walk becomes what I’d always hoped it could be. As a wise person I know likes to say-
We have a lifetime because it takes a lifetime!
Conclusion
After a closer look at Abraham’s story, it has become deeply meaningful to me personally. In it, I found the Creator designing a pathway for all of His lost children to return home. We gain a deeper sense of who He is and realize that He knows and understands our pain and suffering, because He is an emotional Creator.
In a way, all of us are like Abraham, estranged from God, in a foreign land and without hope. Yet as we respond to God’s call, we discover the One who loves us, heals and restores our souls, and gives us promises and confidence for the future.
Stay with me; Abraham has a lot more to say.
~~Be Blessed
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