I Second That Emotion
“Do you know what the Lord desires in you, Gaynor? A woman with a gentle, quiet spirit…” (1 Peter 3:4). I was 18, on my gap year singing with a gospel choir in Scandinavia somewhere and this young man who was pretty much the same age as me, decided to let me know the sole purpose of my existence. At the time, it stroked my fur slightly in the wrong direction - I hadn’t even got out of the teenage years officially, but I knew enough about myself to think “Has God given me the wrong personality by mistake?” But I was young and wanted to learn from everyone who I met on that trip.
Fast forward 35 years and I’m strangely reminded of this encounter as I’m reading Psalm 109. But I’ve filled in the gaps a bit in terms of this verse over the years, and I realise that God did indeed give me the correct personality (with increasing awareness of its aces and deuces!) plus a little theological training that helped me to realise Peter was addressing the ‘Kardashians’ of the early church (1 Peter 3:4).
As for the Psalms, over the last 25 years I’ve seen them broadening out, encompassing the spectrum, the wild rollercoaster, the ups and downs of not just my life but humanity as I see it. When God said “Let us make man in our own image” that means that our makeup, our gifts and talents, the essence of who we are never stands alone, but is a reflection of who God is. So when we get to the gnarly vibe of Psalm 109 and the other imprecatory Psalms (the anger, frustration, the outbursts, the impatience, the vengeance), my question is: “Does that mean God’s like that too?” We see who God reveals himself to be from Genesis to Revelation and in particular in the conception, birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. But what about the behaviours, traits that we observe in all humanity but perhaps aren’t as explicit in the scriptures? When we think of the complexities of being human, do we reflect a more complex God than we think we know?
Psalm 109 throws this question in the air nicely as we observe David invoking divine judgement on his enemies. As I look back over my faith journey, I’m able to identify some of the implicit discipleship messages I’ve received, one of which is: We shouldn’t want or desire for anything. If we’re truly satisfied then why would we ask God for something we don’t have? If we have got our eye on that job promotion or Caribbean cruise, we can dress it up with an “if it be Your will”, leaving no room for disappointment. To say that God desires is surely to say that He is unsatisfied - He doesn’t have everything that He wants and there are things that come against His completeness, His oneness.
In Exodus 20:5, God declares, "You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God." It refers to God's zealous protection of His relationship with humanity, particularly the Israelites, and His intolerance of other gods or idolatry. This "jealousy" is not to be understood as human envy, but rather as a divine attribute rooted in love and a desire for exclusive devotion.
God has designs on His comms strategy as He says of His word: “It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it”. (Is 55:11) In the book of Hosea He desires mercy, not sacrifice. God's desire isn’t just an “if you would be so kind…” but it’s a yearning, a reaching for something that hasn’t yet been realised.
If we look at Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see a desire for a different outcome, a desire for God to almost change His mind: “Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’” (Matt 26:39).
So what about God’s anger? “You toucha my kid, I smasha ya face!” Don’t ask me where it came from, but when our children were young and I spotted them being shoved by another child in the playground, that primal instinct rose up in me! Not enough to ‘smasha their face’ you’ll be pleased to know, but God is the Father of Nations and His anger extends to those who ‘ toucha his kids’: “The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies” (Nah 1:2). God told the Israelites if they listen to His voice, “Then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries” (Ex 23:22).
We can easily go to the turning of the tables in Matthew or Mark when we think of Jesus’ anger, but that’s only displayed physically and we all know that anger is backstage as well as frontstage. I recently came across a prayer entitled “After Speaking in Haste” beginning with the opening line: “O Lord, my mouth is full of sparks…” I love this (as one who speaks in haste probably on a daily basis…) and it made me think about some of Jesus’ words towards the religious rulers (whitewashed walls, snakes, vipers etc) - perhaps He was just giving voice to His Father’s thoughts.
Then there’s just the commonal garden ‘just being emotional’. A friend of mine recently had equally helpful advice that I received all those years ago, this time for her it was: “Be careful that you don’t lead with your emotions”. I hear some of what they were saying, but if God were not to express his jealousy, his anger, his frustration, his disappointment, if Jesus had skipped through the Garden of Gethsemane towards the cross, if Paul and Barnabus hadn’t fallen out, if the greatest commandment were faith or truth instead of love, then I think we would be ‘imaging’ something very different back to God, to each other and to the world.