Season 11 of the survivalist television show ALONE features a librarian by the name of Peter Albano. After about ten days of absolute solitude, Peter begins to talk to the camera about his son, whom he describes as a small child who feels big emotions. Peter, on the other hand, has perfected the skill of feeling nothing. He explains that as a father, he has been trying to teach his son to keep his emotions to himself, believing that there is strength in an unfeeling stoicism. Peter says he has been married about fifteen years, “and my wife has never seen me cry.”
Just about the time I began arguing with the television, everything began to change. After ten days insulated from the threat of other people’s scorn, Peter’s emotions begin coming to the surface. Although he does not show it on camera, Peter reports crying all the time and thinking about traumas and tragedies he had not thought about for many years. This development struck me as good news, healthy somehow.
But then Peter tapped out. He reached for his satellite phone and called the show’s producers to come and rescue him. As he put it, he was afraid the emotions were going to overwhelm him, taking him to a dark place from which he would struggle to return.
When Peter left his lean-to 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle, he made a decision to learn how to handle emotions, to examine them, live with them, and help his son understand them. It sounded like a healthy change. Like growth.
I knew my father well enough to know how deeply he felt emotions of all kinds—but he was private about his strongest feelings. I watched his life for 55 years and I only saw him shed a single tear, and that was during his own father’s funeral.
In fact, I have known many great men who did not reveal emotions—and I do not criticize them for that. But I think King David found the perfect balance. The warrior-poet provides a healthy example of a powerful, man’s man who is nevertheless comfortable and honest about his emotions. David was confident enough to drop his guard and let people see his emotional pain. (And of course, Jesus did the same, as noted in everyone’s favorite short Bible verse: “Jesus wept,” John 11:35.)
David’s Psalm 142 has a subtitle: “A maskil [song] of David, a prayer when he was in the cave.” Imagine hiding out in a cave, a fugitive on the run. The king himself is obsessed with ending you. David, who grew up playing music for King Saul, who has killed Goliath and led the nation’s warriors in battle, is now living in the wilderness, running for his life from a man who should be heaping upon him trophies and praise. David feels alone and betrayed and he cries out to God. David shares all his emotions—but notice with whom he shares them:
“I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble.
When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who watches over my way. In the path where I walk people have hidden a snare for me. Look and see, there is no one at my right hand; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life. I cry to you, Lord; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need; rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me. Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me” Psalm 142:1-7.
David is not uncomfortable with his emotions. But he does not share them with everyone.
As Jesus might put it, David does not ‘cast his pearls before swine’ Matthew 7:6. As Peter Albano and a million other men could tell you—the world is filled with those who do not deserve to hear about your emotions. There is a time to be vulnerable. “There is a time to weep” Ecclesiastes 3:4–and there is a time not to.
David owns his emotions. He will explore them, feel them, and share them. But David does not share his emotions with everyone. He shares them with God, his Shepherd who “restores his soul” Psalm 23:3.
Do you share your deepest emotions with God? You should.
Few things will do more for your relationship with God than deep and honest prayers—conversations—about your emotions.
One easy, practical way to do that is to grab a cheap notebook and begin writing prayers to God every day. A spiritual journal will not only enrich your prayer life, it may help you begin to hear more from God than you ever have before. Regularly writing prayers to God is a powerful tool!
Finally, look at David’s conclusion. After he shares his emotions with God, his loneliness, his feelings of betrayal, and his desperate prayers for rescue, he knows God is going to bless him:
“Set me free from my prison, that I may praise Your Name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of Your goodness to me” Psalm 142:7.
This psalm, this prayer that is a song, begins alone in a cave where David feels “no one is concerned for me … no one cares for my life” (v.4). But by the end, David is no longer alone.
“Then the righteous will gather about me because of Your goodness to me.”
That is how good God is. Not only will God bless you, but He will surround you with encouragement from the righteous. They will gather around you because they can sense that God has been good to you.
Dear God, teach us to manage our emotions. To handle them with wisdom and discipline. To remember that we can choose how we react and we can choose to cultivate gratitude and forgiveness and a good, Godly attitude. Teach us to share emotions honestly, especially in prayer. And we thank you for the promise of comfort not only from You but from Your people.
Then will the righteous gather about me because of your goodness to me.
AΩ.
Household Words: 