If you've spent any time in Christian circles, you've heard it.
"Don't be ruled by your emotions."
"The devil loves a woman who's ruled by her emotions."
That's true! A life run by unchecked feelings is not a free life.
But then what's the suggestion?
"Get out of your emotions and into the Word."
I can't stand that advice. It sounds holy, but it's suppression. And we know what happens when we suppress: the feeling doesn't leave. It goes underground, and it comes back sideways as a snap at the kids, a migraine, resentment, or a numb, flat faith.
It's not "the Word of God" versus "our emotions." God designed us with emotions.
What the Church actually teaches
The Catechism calls emotions "passions," and it does not treat them as the enemy:
"The passions are natural components of the human psyche; they form the passageway and ensure the connection between the life of the senses and the life of the mind" (CCC 1764).
"In themselves passions are neither good nor evil" (CCC 1767).
"In the Christian life, the Holy Spirit himself accomplishes his work by mobilizing the whole being, with all its sorrows, fears and sadness" (CCC 1769).
The passions are the passageway, not the problem.
Aquinas goes even further
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote a whole treatise on the passions in the Summa Theologiae (I-II, q. 22–48). His conclusion is quoted right in the Catechism: "it belongs to the perfection of moral good that man should be moved unto good, not only in respect of his will, but also in respect of his sensitive appetite" (I-II, q. 24, a. 3; CCC 1770).
Read that again. The goal is not a woman who does the right thing in spite of what she feels. The goal is a woman whose heart is moved toward the good too.
Aquinas teaches that courage isn't the absence of fear. It's fear rightly ordered. Patience isn't the absence of frustration. It's frustration brought to God and transformed. Every virtue is a rightly ordered passion. Suppression only produces the appearance of virtue.
Would you tell Jesus to get out of His emotions?
Look at how Jesus lived.
In Gethsemane, He was in such anguish that His sweat fell like drops of blood (Luke 22:44). He said, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death" (Matthew 26:38).
He made a whip of cords and overturned the money-changers' tables (John 2:15).
He "looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart" (Mark 3:5).
He challenged the religious authorities with loud, strong words (Matthew 23).
He wept at Lazarus's tomb (John 11:35).
Aquinas even asks whether Christ had real sorrow, fear, and anger. His answer is yes: true human passions, always perfectly ordered to the Father (ST III, q. 15, a. 6–9).
Would you tell Him to get out of His emotions and into the Word? He is the Word.
The better way: feel it, bring it, let Him order it
In Gethsemane, Jesus didn't bypass what He felt to get to the Father. He brought it to Him: "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me." He named it. He offered it. Then came the surrender (Matthew 26:39).
That's the sequence:
Feel it. Notice what's really there, and where it lives in your body.
Name it. "I'm resentful." "I'm afraid." "I'm grieving."
Bring it. Bring the real thing to Christ, not the cleaned-up version.
Listen underneath it. Resentment often says, "I want to be seen, not just needed." Those are needs God placed in you.
Let Him order it. Let His love, and His Word, shape what you do next.
Scripture is not the opposite of your emotions. It's the light you bring them into.
You don't have to choose between your faith and your heart
Inside Rising Tide Fellowship, I walk women through exactly this: embracing God's design of our bodies and emotions, bringing the pain to Christ Himself, and letting Him order our emotions for good.
If you want to see where your emotions tend to pull you, take the free Virtue Quiz. Or come to The Encounter Room, where we practice bringing the whole self to Christ every week.
