Do you ever feel like God couldn’t possibly understand what it is like to be you? With balancing work, bills, family, and a social life, it seems impossible sometimes. With running around just trying to live a balanced life, sometimes God is looking down on us, telling us to slow down- especially if we’re living in active sin, He wants us to stop, repent, and live from a redeemed place.  

How our sin makes God feel

Life can sometimes feel like God doesn’t understand us because we don’t truly understand Him. Not long ago, when I was caught up in sin, my friend asked me “How do you think your sin makes God feel?” and I honestly didn’t know the answer. Being brought up Anglican, I was never taught about how God feels, I was never taught that He even had feelings. It wasn’t until about two years ago, when I embarked on my own personal journey to know Christ, that I truly developed a relationship with God, to know who He is. This question played on my mind – how does God feel? I spent so much time wrapped up in my own emotions that I didn’t bother to think about God’s emotions.

God feels sadness and he was sorry that He made mankind due to their wickedness. The Hebrew word used here is ‘nacham’ and it means God was so sad that He had to console Himself. He had pity and actually changed His mind about creating human beings. You see, God really really hates sin and seeing it makes Him sad. And the reason why God hates sin is because it separates us from Him and he hates seeing what our own sin does to us, but before Jesus died on the cross for us.

I can relate to God feeling sadness and wanting to console Himself. Consoling yourself can also be referred to as self-soothing. When I console myself, I usually wrap my arms around body- I cross my arms and put each hand just underneath my shoulder. It feels like I’m hugging myself. I feel like I’m hugging someone and someone else is hugging me. I like to get into bed and wrap my duvet around myself because it feels like someone is hugging me. We console ourselves to make ourselves feel better. Relating to how sad God can feel makes me feel sad for Him, I don’t want God to be sad, I don’t want God to feel the way I feel. But I imagine that my sin has made God so sad at times that He too wants to get into bed and wrap a duvet round Himself and make Himself feel better. I don’t want to make anyone feel like that, especially God.

Jesus is also emotionally moved by our sin

Looking at the story of Lazarus, Jesus wasn’t sad because Lazarus had died, Jesus was sad because of Mary and Martha’s remorse. Jesus knew that Lazarus had died and that He was going to raise him from the dead, this was all just a sign to help people believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but Jesus was still deeply moved. The Greek word for deeply moved is ‘embrimaomai’ and it means to be moved with anger and to express indignant displeasure. It literally means to snort with rage. Jesus was deeply angered at the sorrow caused by death, to the point it affected Him physically that He cried. Jesus hates to see us sad. He wasn’t just sad about Mary and Martha’s grief, but also the grief of the Jews who had come to comfort them.

You see, God is so deeply saddened and enraged when we are sad. Sadness is almost always a result of sin, whether our own sin or someone else’s. Death is a curse that is upon us all as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin (Genesis 3:21-22). God hates sin because, not only does it separate us from Him (Isaiah 59:2), but it produces suffering, and God doesn’t want to see us suffer. Jesus wasn’t weeping over Lazarus’ death, He was weeping at the grief of the people. By nature, Jesus is empathetic and He is deeply troubled when we are troubled. Many times, throughout Scripture, we see that Jesus has compassion for people who are grieving (Luke 7:13). God can relate to every emotion we feel, He’s been through it and He’s felt it and He still feels emotions even in heaven (Hebrews 4:15).

God’s sadness of relationship fallouts

Okay, so God is saddened by sin, but what about the other stuff that we have to deal with in our lives? What about when there is drama in our lives or fallouts within our friendship groups? Jesus can relate.

This was during the last supper. Jesus was deeply troubled in spirit because He knew Judas was going to betray Him. The Greek word for deeply troubled is ‘tarasso’ and it means Jesus’ spirit was agitated and rocking back and forth. It means to have inner perplexity and emotional agitation and getting all stirred up inside (this sounds a bit like anxiety). When a supposed friend of Jesus turned on Him and betrayed Him, it made God feel deeply troubled in spirit.

I think we can all relate to losing a friend or a friend turn on us, and I think we can all relate to having feelings of anxiety. I believe that Jesus was feeling anxious during the last supper, one because He knew the gruesome death that would befall Him and He had a follower that was just about to betray Him. Being deeply troubled in spirit is scary and uncomfortable. When you feel troubled within, there’s almost nothing you can do about it. I often don’t know how to deal with my emotions so whenever I’m overwhelmed or feeling a lot, I run away from God and my emotions. I don’t pray as much and I don’t read my Bible as much, as I distract myself with music and social media. Running away from my emotions is selfish because, whatever I’m feeling in the moment, God is feeling it in the moment with me.

One of good things about God is that He doesn’t run away from emotions, He embraces them and He consoles Himself, whilst consoling us. Why do I think God can’t console me or comfort me? If He can console Himself, He can console me! When I run away from pain, I’m leaving God in pain for longer. I wasn’t brought up being taught that God has emotions, so sometimes when I’m feeling emotional, I just focus on myself. But there is Someone right there with me feeling everything I’m feeling and that’s God. I’m not alone so I shouldn’t run from Him. When we sin in our emotions, we hurt not only ourselves, but when we repent, it brings God joy (Luke 15:7)! The Greek word for rejoice is ‘chara’ and it means to have joy or delight. God is filled with joy when He sees repentance. Even though sin makes God angry, He doesn’t stay angry.

Gone are the days where I need to be anxious about what God thinks about my sin because now, instead of running from God in my emotion and hiding my sin from Him, I will go to God and confess everything! He already sees every thought and feeling that’s within me (Hebrews 4:13), so I might as well be humble and confess it. Repentance is a change of attitude that results in a change of behaviour. If we don’t acknowledge our sin and humble ourselves before God, we will never repent. Is God angry at your sin? Yes. Will He forgive you when you repent? Yes. And He will be filled with joy. No longer do we need to be down about our sin. We will always fall short, but the importance is that we always try to do right in God’s eyes, that is what makes you blameless before Him (Psalm 119:1-2).

For more information and Bible studies on how to get closer to God, please feel free to contact me on Instagram, or for any other questions about God and the Bible you may have.