Many Christians take offense at any suggestion of dishonesty in Christian circles. They insist that Christians are above all honest. Is it true? In many ways, yes. We would, for instance, return the extra dollar in our change to the store clerk. But on the other hand we may give the impression that God’s presence keeps us always on “cloud nine,” when we know we also have times of depression. Our testimony may suggest that we live a victorious Christian life of exalted mood and no defeat, when we know very well that life is not always like that. We make it seem as if our “peak” experience is an ever-present reality. Isn’t this a form of dishonesty?
I lead what most people would consider an interesting and rewarding life. I teach stimulating university students about fascinating subjects, knowing that I am opening new doors for many. I direct a foundation aimed at helping missionaries and other Christian workers who have emotional problems; I work personally with those whose problems are severe enough to interfere with their ability to adjust, and can see the positive changes made in their lives as a result. I have opportunities to speak to receptive audiences in many places in the world. I have been personally involved in the lives of hundreds through their sharing and my helping in psychotherapy. I have stimulating business interests that add a wholly different dimension to my life. I get great satisfaction from using talents in writing, singing, painting, and construction.
Yet at times I am caught up in feelings of hopelessness, defeat, and horrible despair. Sometimes nothing goes right. Mistakes accumulate in rapid succession, and I feel ready to give up. Life seems not to be worth the herculean effort I am making to keep things going.
But in time there comes again the realization that “underneath are the everlasting arms.” This was the verse my father gave me as I left for a war that was to try my soul and body in new and devilish ways. Because God was faithful then, I have a glimmer of hope that he will be faithful now, and so I plod on, realizing that this too—this horrible mood—shall pass.
Sometimes help comes unexpectedly, as in an appreciative letter from a former client or student who, perhaps unknowingly, had been helped years ago. Then the thought comes that perhaps there is more going on right now than I realize. This spurs me to get out of my morbid preoccupation with failure, obstruction, or the seeming callousness of God’s people toward the needs of mankind.
If I made the mistake of comparing my state at these low points to the exaltation I hear described in testimonies as if it were the Christian’s continual state, I would be tempted all the more to give up on everything. But I know better than to make this error. I know that many of those people have had the same kinds of problems that I am experiencing, because I have helped them when they have honestly faced their low points in my office.
Most Christians, however, don’t have the opportunity I have to see both sides of the coin. The result is sometimes deep, lonely despair that may lead to neurosis, psychosis, or even suicide—and often it is related to other Christians’ emotional dishonesty.
James admonishes us to confess our faults to one another and pray for healing (5:2). Bearing one another’s burdens, as Paul instructed us in Galatians 6:2, is a significant step in bearing one’s own burden (Gal. 6:5), which we all eventually have to do. It helps the bearer as well as the sharer.
Each time we are emotionally dishonest and try to convey a false picture of a victorious Christian experience, we are depriving others of the opportunity to know us better and to grow spiritually and personally in the process. I am suggesting not that we continually cry on other persons’ shoulders but that we need to develop more honesty about the state we are in. Knowing that others have conflicts too and are coping with them gives hope to Christians who are in the midst of depression.
The bubbling fountain of life that we all want to experience all the time is in reality a waxing and waning of many experiences. The victorious life is one that rises above the failure and continues even though the emotional experience of that failure or loss seems to preclude any movement. And sometimes it is necessary to have someone work through those failures with us, until our perspective returns again. A trained counselor working in the church support center may be what is needed to help us learn the necessary truth about our inner life; or it may require the help of a dedicated professional, who can be the instrument of the Holy Spirit.
God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way. The way we learn those lessons is not to deny the feelings but to find the meaning underlying them. In this manner we grow to become more like the persons God wants us to be. The “refiner’s fire” may well be the mood problems we experience. If we deny that these feelings exist, we deny that God can use them to help us. We refuse to profit from them, to learn from them how to grow in our emotional and spiritual life. And our emotional dishonesty may be creating problems for others.
In the new “wave” of treatment of persons with severe emotional disturbances, many authorities suggest that tranquilizers or mood elevators not be used, so that the person who is undergoing the mood changes can discover the significance of the problem underlying the emotional upset. The implication is that chemically changing the mood deprives the person of the opportunity to find reasons why the upset occurred. An effect similar to the chemical mood change can be produced if one denies the reality of the mood itself, which is what some Christians are trying to do. One can fool himself by this sort of emotional dishonesty some of the time, and one can fool others much of the time by a vibrant testimony to what is a partial reality in his life. However, we eventually have to deal with this misrepresentation in other ways, such as, possibly, a conversion to a physical disorder that seems to appear mysteriously.
How can we learn the lessons we need to learn unless we face our problems and do something about them? Emotional honesty is necessary for one’s own spiritual and emotional growth, and it also helps others to get the right perspective on their own experience. This is what Paul speaks of in Galatians 6, the “bearing through sharing” that helps us to carry our own burden.
A PRINCE AT PENIEL
When No and No and No can in one day
become as life unborn, unthought of, a
refusal without form or reason, play
on weary words which falter in their way,
then what has seemed a fortress can dissolve
into a fragrant mist from heathered hills,
a home for one reborn to deep resolve,
to unsheathed heart, and tendered mind that wills
to walk with words that build not fortresses
of sculptured stone but altars simply set
to speak of one unalterable Yes
to living sacrifice lest we forget
and build again our fortresses to mar
our garden moor with fear of what we are.
CAROLE SANDERSON STREETER
