True Feelings: God's Gracious and Glorious Purpose for Our Emotions

by Carolyn Mahaney, Nicole Mahaney Whitacre, Joni Eareckson Tada (Foreword)

What am I feeling? Emotions can be confusing. One moment we’re happy, content, and hopeful, and the next we’re anxious, hurt, and overwhelmed. But we don’t have to live at the mercy of our emotions. In True Feelings, a mother-daughter team clears away common misconceptions and mixed messages about our feelings to offer us a biblical perspective on emotions―helping us understand how they work, why we feel what we feel, and how to develop good emotional habits. We will see that we don’t have to ignore, excuse, or follow our feelings, but can instead learn to honor God with our emotions as an integral part of who he made us to be.

Genres: Christian, Christian Living, Faith, Nonfiction, Theology, Christian Non Fiction, Christianity

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2017

About the author

Carolyn Mahaney is a wife, mother, and homemaker. Having spent over thirty years as a pastor's wife, Carolyn has spoken to women in many churches and conferences. She is the author of Feminine Appeal, Girl Talk, Shopping for Time and True Beauty. She blogs with her daughters at www girltalkhome com, a blog focused on biblical womanhood. Carolyn and her husband, C. J., are the parents of three married daughters and one son, and the happy grandparents to twelve grandchildren.

Reviews

[Jami Balmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

God gifted us with emotions so that we can feel
deeply, love fiercely, and walk with others as they do both. But our emotions can be tough to sort through sometimes and we just go with what we “feel” we can find ourselves in trouble and deep in sin! Our emotions are neither good nor bad on their own, but it’s how we use them and submit to God’s will with them that counts. I love this look at our emotions from a Biblical standpoint and how we can use that for God’s glory!! I received a free copy of this book from Crossway in exchange for my unbiased review. Thanks Crossway!! :)

[Molly Whelan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a person who at times has wished I could make all of my emotions go away, this was a great reminder and explanation that emotions are a gift from God. Our emotions can be transformed by God's grace to align with biblical truths.

[Rachel Acalinei · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a short & insightful. It leads readers on a journey of the reason for emotions and what exactly we’re supposed to do with them.
One of the first parts of the book that I really liked said that “Emotions are a gift from God.” Never thought about it like that before!
The writers go on to say that our emotions are reporters for the soul – they tell us what’s going on and they show us what we value. Emotional responses (anger, sadness, happiness, fear, worry) arise when something happens to the object we value. And emotions even tell us what we believe in a certain moment.
Yet emotions are never our final authority - we can change how we feel based upon what we believe.
This book is excellent for helping us understand our emotions from a Biblical standpoint and how we can use that for God’s glory!!
However.. it doesn’t delve too deeply in many physiological and hormonal causes of emotions that can be difficult to manage (menopause, hormone replacement, other medications, physical deficiencies, etc.)

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feelings and emotions are good. Jesus had passionate feelings. how to have Godly feelings.

[Heidi Goehmann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think at the end of the day, it’s mostly a very different theological lens at play here between me and the book. There is much attention to obeying God with our emotions. Which isn’t a completely unfair point, but when overemphasized leads us to shame rather than freedom, leads us to see God as the man in the sky waiting for us to mess up, than the God concerned with our experiences and ready to die to spend time with all of our messy selves. This book is also focused on women, so I will share my personal bias: I do not love emotions books for women because I think it perpetuates the cultures misconception that women are hyper emotional or more emotional than men. I would have appreciated at least a nod toward this misconception, but instead I was a little led to believe that the authors might support it, which is an assumption, but what came through. There is a lot of talk about hormones and even PMS in the mix with other experiences, which isn’t completely false, but without some science or research identified again perpetuates stereotypes. I appreciate that the authors recognize the value of many, many emotions. The premise that all emotions stem from our values and beliefs I don’t know if I’m down with, at least in totality. There is a beautifully written portion on pain and the joy that comes through pain not after it, as well as attention to the value Scripture places on emotions that are normally uncomfortable for many of us.

[Stacy Moody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotions can be tricky to navigate and seem nearly impossible to rein in at times. Yet we are to rule our emotions instead of being ruled by them. My main takeaway is that the purpose of emotions is to move us toward God. If my anger or happiness are not doing that, then they are sinful. But if they are, then God is glorified and I am being sanctified. Elisabeth Elliot, who constantly urged others toward obedience, would have approved of this book.

[jess h. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don’t look at how long this took me to read.

7 MONTHS

Welp, now you’ve done it.

This is why this book gets three stars for me. I wasn’t able to get into it. But I decided to pick it up again during a time in my life where I really needed to learn about controlling my emotions and blew through 50% of the book in two days. It was a good one, but this may have to be a book you decide to sit down and read in a couple days in order to get the most out of it.

[Colette]

This is more a defense of feelings than guide to handling them biblically, which is what I thought it would be. I think I only got two or three chapters in before deciding that life is too short and time too precious to waste either on a book that to that point had nothing to offer me and was more irritating in its repetitive, passionate defense of emotions than anything else.

[Caly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grounded in Biblical truths and written with genuine care for the reader, this book will serve you in ways you didn’t know you needed.
This book has changed the way I view my emotions and conflicting feelings, and if that’s not life changing, I don’t know what is. The chapter that served me the most was “Act to Feel.”

[Natalie Herr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the book was helpful and gave a solid biblical perspective on feelings, but left a major question in my mind unanswered: what do we do with the feelings of others? How do we work through emotions together? The relational aspect was missing for me, but it was an otherwise great resource.

[NinaB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent short study on feelings as both a gift from God and a curse when uncontrolled. The book gives a balanced, biblical and helpful explanation of our emotions and how we can better use them not to sin, but as a reminder of God’s goodness and to be utilized for His glory.

[Lizzie Healy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a good book. It dealt with difficult situations and emotions that women face everyday and truly explained how to find the source of our different emotions and whether or not our emotions are good or bad in the perspective of Christ’s own emotions. I would 100% recommend this book to any women and hope it’s as beneficial to them as it was to me. Definitely would read again.

[BrontëKas · Rating 5 out of 5]

“My emotions didn’t run away with me. Sin ran away with my emotions.”

This is an excellent manual to understand what emotions are, what they do for us, and how to submit them to Christ. Encouraging, Gospel-centered, and practical. I need the physical copy so I can underline! Audiobook read by Carla Mercer-Meyer.

“Act obedient to feel obedient.”

[Jana Grote · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t believe I haven’t read this book until now! A short and sweet book on feelings and how to handle them as a Christian. It’s short but full of practical biblical advice on how to manage your unwieldy emotions. Highly recommend!

[Marina · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and quick read, so helpful and encouraging - would rate it a 6 if I could and plan to re-read often.

[Rebekah Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a helpful resource, namely because I can now point to what is true and wonderful about emotions. For years (maybe all my life?) I have viewed emotions in a largely negative light. Additionally, the book provides very practical tools for what to do in “emergency” emotional situations, how to take a deeper dive into more chronic/undesirable emotions, and what a healthy emotional life looks like.

Below were some helpful quotes for me from the book.

"God's Word doesn't pit feelings and truth against each other but calls us to feel more deeply about the things that are true."

"Just as our minds enable us to think and our wills enable us to choose, so our emotions enable us to respond."

"Often the emotions we most wish we could avoid propel us in a new and better direction."

"Be sure that human feelings can never be completely stifled. If they are forbidden their normal course, like a river they will cut another channel through the life and flow out to curse and ruin and destroy." A.W. Tozer

1. "Emotions tell us what we value. They tell us about the people we care about and the things in life that we desire. They reveal what we treasure (Matt. 6:21)…the strength of the emotion is in proportion to the value of the object."
2. "Emotions tell us what we believe. They reveal our take on reality. They tell us how we evaluate what is going on with the people and things that we value."

"Emotions tell, and they tell us the truth. Feelings don't lie, but they may tell us that we believe a lie. Feelings don't confer value, but they tell us that we assess an object as having value. As such, feelings are reliable. They accurately tell us about our beliefs and values."

"If the presence of an emotion reveals our beliefs and values, a lack of emotion reveals that we don't really value something or believe that it is true."

"Emotions talk and we should listen…If we ignore our feelings, we will miss out on valuable intelligence about our souls and the people around us. We will stunt our growth in maturity and relationships. But when we listen to what our feelings are telling us and evaluate them in light of God's Word, we can grow in godliness."

3. "Emotions also move us to action…Feelings are like the engine of the soul…the word emotion comes from the Latin mover, which means "to move." "

"God designed our emotions to put us in motion. Their primary purpose is to turn us away from ourselves and toward God and others in love."

"Since heart and body are interdependent, a disordered body can shape emotions in such a way that they are unpredictable and unrelated to our desires and loves. In other words, sometimes our emotions are speaking about spiritual matters, and sometimes they are not." Ed Welch

"We shouldn't try to trace every emotional thread or untangle every emotional knot. It'll never work. Not to mention that all our questioning and analyzing and introspection often pull us into a self-focused spiral. Nowhere in Scripture does God require us to examine and catalog every emotion…we must move to God…When we move to God in our perplexity and acknowledge that we need his help to understand our emotions, he will graciously help us to hear one or two truths above all the noise. We may not be able to trace the source of every emotion, but we can know what God wants us to do with every emotion: bring them to him."

"Because emotions are from God, for the glory of God, we must consider how he wants us to feel. This is the place that we must start. But when it comes to emotions, we tend to start with how we feel, how we want to feel, or how others expect us to feel—instead of with God."

" "Happy is the one who seeks not happiness but righteousness." Happiness is a by-product of wanting something more than happiness—to be rightly related to God and our neighbor. If you seek God as the nonnegotiable good of your life, you will get happiness thrown in. If, however, you aim mainly at personal happiness, you will get neither." Tim Keller

"When we learn to evaluate our emotions—not by whether they are positive or negative, but by how they reflect our beliefs and values—it will be easy for us to see the emotions that God requires."

"the emotions we need rescuing from may also be the emotions that move us to safety."

"As Christians, we need to learn how to tell emotional time. We need to understand when it is time for groaning or sighing, and how long we should expect painful emotions to last."

"Are my painful emotions moving me toward God or toward myself?"

"When you are not all absorbed in yourself, you can feel the sadness of the world. And therefore, what you actually have is that the joy of the Lord happens inside the sorrow. It doesn't come after the sorrow. It doesn't come after the uncontrollable weeping. The weeping drives you into the joy, it enhances the joy, and then the joy enables you to actually feel your grief without its sinking you. In other words, you are finally emotionally healthy." Tim Keller

"The emotional character we are striving for is multifaceted, reflecting a full range of godly emotions: from sincere grief over sin to earnest hope for heaven, from righteous anger at injustice to genuine affection for our fellow man. We are to be, as Tolkien said, "sad, but not unhappy," and as the apostle Paul described, "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:10)."

"Christlike emotions are what we're destined for, but it is also a goal we must work toward (Col. 1:29). As Christians, we must actively cultivate Christlike emotions in our lives. And to do that, we must look to Christ; we must focus on the image of God's Son to whom we are being conformed."

"The reason for Jesus's radically different emotions was their object: to please his Heavenly Father. Jesus loved to do his Father's will, was angry at whatever offended his Father, and perfectly reflected his Father's mercy."

"Many people assume that emotional maturity means fewer highs and fewer lows, that our goal is to feel less rather than more. But when we look at Jesus's emotions, we see that he was a man of deep, intense feeling. He was "deeply moved" (Jn 11:33), and he "earnestly desired" (Luke 22:15); he was "very sorrowful (Matt. 26:38) and "full of joy" (Lk 10:21).

"Emotions are not dangerous. We are in danger, though, if our emotions are not satisfied in Christ…The crowning emotion of love, says Piper, "comes before and enables." Feelings of love drive us to acts of self-sacrifice. Hatred of sin ignites repentance. Compassion compels kindness. Righteous anger catapults us to feats of courage. The hope of heaven thrusts us forward like a large, impervious ship, over the crashing waves of hardship in our lives. Thankfulness for our Savior's death and resurrection moves us to worship and praise. Christlike emotions empower a life of godliness.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

First sentence: Imagine Marilla Cuthbert and Anne Shirley writing a book together, and that’ll give you an idea of what’s ahead. But that’s only half the story. We may be emotional opposites, but we share a common curiosity and enthusiasm to learn what the Bible has to say about a woman’s feelings.

Premise/plot: True Feelings is written by a mother and daughter team. The focus is on emotions and what God has revealed about them in his Word. Chapters include: "Fact, Fiction, and Feelings," "The Gift of Emotions," "Why Do I Feel This Way?" "Feeling Good," "Emotional Emergency Measures," "How Do I Control My Emotions?" "Act to Feel," "God's Purpose in Pain," and "Godly Emotions for Life." The foreword is by one of my favorite authors, Joni Eareckson Tada. The book is definitely geared more towards women, but, I don't think women are the only ones that struggle with emotions and feelings.

The book is titled True Feelings. In chapter four, they define what makes feelings true:
Do we believe what God says is true and do we value what God says we should value? If so, we will have true feelings. In other words, our positive emotions are ungodly if we approve of things that God says are wrong or find pleasure in things that God hates.
My thoughts: I definitely would recommend this one. At first, I felt a little disconnected from the authors. I remember finding it odd that the authors were referring to themselves in the third person. But it wasn't too long before I forgot about *who* was writing it and focused solely on the content or the message. What does God have to say in His Holy Word about emotions and feelings--positive and negative?

I would say the book is practical and relevant. For example, in chapter five, the authors teach readers three "emergency measures" for resisting emotional temptation. They are: 1) exercise self control, 2) cry out to God, 3) take one action (one obedient action).

And the book is definitely thought-provoking. In chapter six, the authors ask a lot of tough questions for readers to answer: "What are my working beliefs about God? How do I think about myself? What do I think about how things are going for me? How do my beliefs line up with the life-giving truth of the gospel?"

Favorite quotes:

Emotions play an integral role in our lives, from our relationships with God and others, to our memories, imaginations, and life experiences. God created our emotions to work in harmony with our other two most fundamental faculties: the mind and the will.

The myth that “emotions are bad” puts the blame in the wrong place. Emotions aren’t inherently bad or unruly, but sin has devastated our emotions.

Emotions tell us what we value. They tell us about the people we care about and the things in life that we desire.

Emotions also tell us what we believe. They reveal our take on reality. They tell us how we evaluate what is going on with the people and things that we value.

Nowhere in Scripture does God require us to examine and catalog every emotion. A cacophony of emotions tells us one thing above all: we must move to God. There is no feeling or jumble of feelings that we cannot bring to him. In fact, confusing emotions can be marvelous motivators, driving us to the only one who clears up our confusion.

When we seek emotions for God and not for ourselves, we will, by the grace of God, find true happiness. Only when we start with God can we handle our emotions; and in his Word, God tells us how we are supposed to feel.

Godly emotions arise from godly beliefs and values. In other words, godly emotions spring from beliefs and values that correspond to the truths and values of God’s Word. By the same token, ungodly emotions flow from ungodly beliefs and values.

If we spend twenty minutes a day reading our Bibles, but the remaining twenty-three hours and forty minutes ruminating on unbiblical thoughts, then it is no wonder that our sinful beliefs and values are so stubborn and our sinful emotions so strong. Sinful ruminating can reverse the good effects of time spent in God’s Word. It slows our growth and keeps us stuck in the same sinful emotions. We can’t expect to grow godly emotions in the soil of our sinful ruminations, so if we struggle to change our beliefs and values, this bad habit is the place to start.
We have to be deliberate, and we have to persist. But if we meditate on what is true, lovely, and admirable—all day long—we will cultivate godly beliefs and values from which obedient emotions will flourish (Phil. 4:8).

The longer we go without reading our Bibles, the less we want to read them. The more serving opportunities we pass up, the less we feel like serving, and the more times we skip church, the less we feel like going. If we procrastinate in our work, we feel less inclined to finish it. That’s because our faculties work together, and our actions (or inaction) affect how we feel. Waiting to feel before we act in obedience is a bad habit that bolsters our sinful emotions. Sinful beliefs and values only get stronger when we indulge our sinful feelings.

God not only gives us Scripture, prayer, and the refreshing shelter of his church to sustain Christlike emotions, he punctuates our whole lives with gracious gifts that enliven our feelings.

Emotions are not dangerous. We are in danger, though, if our emotions are not satisfied in Christ.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an important book.

I bought it because I wanted to get help controlling hormonal outbursts. I had been wondering for years whether there was any Christian book out there on dealing with hormones: we're not supposed to be controlled by anything except Christ, but my default was for hormones to master me. By the end of the first chapter, I realized that my theological understanding of ALL emotions, not just the hormonal ones, had huge gaps and faulty assumptions.

From there, EVERY chapter was packed with not only life-giving, mind-blowing truth I had never considered before, but also extremely practical applications for the moment-by-moment emotional beats of the day. It got to the point where I was going through the book slowly because I was only willing to read it when I was at the top of my intellectual game: not drowsy or distracted, but fully mentally available to soak up all it had to say.

Far from wasting time trying to be funny for half the chapter, these authors took me seriously. The richness of the theological feast they served up was a refreshing change from the "theology-lite" books so often marketed toward Christian women. I felt like a scholar, a student, because of the content--but it was all so easily readable that even young teenagers could benefit.

I wish this book had existed when I was a teenager--or a newlywed, or a postpartum-depressed new mom. I had NO IDEA so many lies about emotional health had infected my life. I had NO IDEA of the proper way to view emotions. I had NO IDEA that some of my long-beloved Bible verses had so many implications for my emotional health--implications I missed because I wasn't looking for them. I thought over and over again about how wonderful it would be to have this book as a resource to share with my own teenage girls one day. Because in a place of honor on my shelf, as a resource I will return to time and again, is where this book will stay!

[Michelle Kidwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

True Feelings

God's Gracious and Glorious Purpose for Our Emotions

by Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre

Crossway

Christian , Religion & Spirituality

Pub Date 31 Oct 2017

I am reviewing a copy of True Feelings Through Crossway and Netgalley:

This book shows us that emotions can be confusing. The book points out too that at times feelings can be so unpleasant we would rather not have them and often Facebook can make it worse.

This book points out that because Christ restores are emotions, they can work the way he meant for them to work, together in harmony with our other faculties.

We are reminded too that emotions can help define who we are, and that they can move us into action when necessary.

This book tells us too that there are a time that good feelings can be bad, like when an enemy falls we should not rejoice. The author reminds us too that even when we are hormonal we can glorify Christ.

The author stresses the importantce Of making sure our beliefs and values line up with God’s Word.

The author encourages us too not to vent but to pour our emotions out to God.

I give True Feelings Five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

[Jenni Moeller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It was an easy read with good biblical perspectives on emotions and what to do with them. It was timely and useful, it made me slow down and really think about if I need to act on my emotions to glorify God or use them to slow down and reevaluate how to respond before I sin or after I sin. Emotions have a purpose and we need to pay attention to them! I used a part of this book to talk to my kids and have a good conversation with them about emotions. The chapter on pain and grief was really good and a reminder not to rush others through their difficulties but allow them to feel all the feelings and pour them out to God. It’s ok to lament!! And for as long as necessary as long as it glorifies God and doesn’t turn into self pity. I also loved the first part of the last chapter when it gave examples of Jesus’s Godly emotions and how he expressed them to the glory of God.

[Jane Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This book is a small ladle -- a teaspoon, really -- dipped into the clear stream of God's Word on emotions," say the authors of the book, but it does as they wish: "we hope that these sips of truth will nourish your soul."

Mahaney and Whitacre can't possibly go deep into the intricacies of human emotions in their little book, but they efficiently and accessibly do speak truth. They don't shy away from hard topics like sin and pain, but address them with compassion and clarity, always pointing readers back to the Bible and the significance of their emotional responses to their relationships with God.

A great little book for thinking about this issue which is especially pertinent for women. Would be an excellent book to work through with a young teen daughter so that she can be ahead of the curve when it comes to navigating this bewildering world.

[Tricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, excellent book about our emotions and how to walk through them biblically. This mother and daughter team does a wonderful job relating to everyday, very real, and sometimes seemingly overwhelming situations and thought patterns that we find ourselves caught in and lovingly encourages us to look at them from a biblical perspective and to align them with what God’s Word says. Laden with bible verses, this book is one that women of all ages and stages can relate to. I highly recommend True Feelings: God’s Gracious and Glorious Purpose for Our Emotions. It’s a book that I know I will read again and again!

[Kady Floyd Briscoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book through alongside some ladies in my church. Fairly certain I rolled my eyes when I initially saw the title, thinking “what a cliche, of course they would have the ladies in the church read a book on emotions.”
This book surprised me by being relevant, full of truth gathered from scripture and offered actionable advice regarding emotions. As a woman who does not consider herself to be particularly “emotional,” I would still consider the book to be applicable throughout daily life.

[Lexi Zuo · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good!! This book offers a wonderfully biblical look at our emotions. I especially like how they seem to go against the grain with the more normal church emphasis on just being more “stoic” or “having less highs and lows” as they put it. Carolyn and Nicole really celebrate the fact that our emotions are actually GIFTS from God meant to point us back to Him. The problem is our own sin and how that affects our emotions. Highly recommend this book!!

[Lindsay Bowley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to reread this book over and over - it is full of powerful truths, and it made me look at my emotions in a new light than I’ve ever seen them before. This is not an emotion-shaming book; it is a book that talks about God’s glorious purpose behind what we feel - a perfect fit for me as I experienced my third trimester in pregnancy and then the birth of my son.

[JoJo · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a 2 on the enneagram, I especially appreciated this book. However, I would recommend it to anyone!

[Kristiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very helpful and Christ-centered book on emotions.

[Megan Cummings · Rating 5 out of 5]

My feelings are given to bring glory to God. May our emotions be aligned with Christ.

[Allison Bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I’d say that this book had good content, but didn’t have anything new to contribute to the overall conversation. Had good reminders of core truths though.

[Jessica Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly helpful and convicting little book about emotions and God’s design for them. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the intensity of your emotions or feel like they’re out of control, this book gives practical steps to practice re-orienting your emotions to the truths in Scripture.