Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled or Afraid
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In our Gospel reading, Jesus offers his disciples peace and tells them, “Do not let your heart be troubled or afraid.” That’s a lovely sentiment. I wonder how it’s received. When he says this, are the disciples just like, “Okay Jesus. My fear and worry are all gone now. Thanks for the peace.”
Well, we have no idea if the disciples can receive his peace at that moment, and if doing so means their worry and fear dissipate. I know that if I was feeling anxious and you were to tell me to stop worrying, it wouldn’t help at all. In fact, telling me to stop worrying is the quickest way to make my worry turn to anger. At you. Can people really control our emotions? Can we not let worry or fear enter our hearts?
I don’t know the answer to that, but there are some who do. One such expert on emotions is Susan David, who wrote a book called Emotional Agility. Basically, emotional agility is allowing our emotions to teach and help us. She describes it this way on her website: “This process [of emotional agility] isn’t about ignoring difficult emotions and thoughts. It’s about holding those emotions and thoughts loosely, facing them with courage and compassion, and moving beyond them to ignite change in your life.” Igniting life changes sounds like the work of the Spirit to me!
We can try to ignore or suppress emotions, but there are some problems with that. When we suppress the more difficult emotions like fear and anger, it’s harder to allow feelings like joy and delight to arise. Also, ignoring feelings doesn’t make them go away. For me, that just makes them louder. Or it makes them wake me up in the middle of the night, and by then my brain is offline, and I feel pretty chaotic. That’s not great. I do think there are a lot of people with a kind of false positivity who don’t want to engage with anything difficult or negative, and maybe they can’t, but that feels inauthentic. I don’t love feeling the difficult emotions either, but the invitation is to accept those emotions and love myself when I feel them. Even anger and sadness are there to teach me something.
Also, emotions are a means through which God communicates with us. Our part of that communication is to discern which feelings come from God (like joy, serenity, gratitude, awe, compassion, love, etcetera) and which come from something else (like fear, anxiety, despair, hate, etcetera.) As we discern, we see which feelings move us toward God and which move us away, and because we ultimately want to be close to God, we try to respond to our feelings in ways that bring us toward God. Sometimes we may experience something that feels negative, like dismay or anger, but even those feelings can come from God. For instance, we should feel angry or dismayed in the face of injustice. When we process and discern our emotions, we allow our minds to engage too, not just our feelings. Bringing the head and heart together helps us to be with our feelings but doesn’t allow them to take control. When my mind is offline, that’s when I tend to ruminate or wallow in negative feelings. No good comes from that. That’s not from God, and the more I move away from that spiral of emotion, the better I can work with feelings in a helpful, holy way.
Back to our disciple friends and their troubled, fearful hearts. They’re afraid for good reason. What if what happened to Jesus happens to them too? I mean, we know it will. They will face persecution, and that struggle is real. Also, even though Jesus has risen from the dead, he’s telling them that he’ll leave them soon, and they’re genuinely sad about that. They don’t yet understand what the guidance from the Holy Spirit will mean, that it will help them to lead this community, that even though things will be hard, they all work out in the end. They can’t know that. However, their emotions, their troubled hearts, show them how much they love Jesus. Their feelings show them how much this movement means to them. In this moment, they may or may not feel peaceful, but they can receive Christ’s peace which, unlike the peace the world offers, is deeper than emotion. Eventually, after Jesus ascends, because their hearts are open, they will be able to receive the Spirit. Once they do, they’ll move out and proclaim the love of God, despite their fear.
And maybe that’s key here. Our hearts can be troubled and we can feel plenty of fear, and that’s alright. We can allow those feelings, but they don’t get to be in the driver’s seat determining where we go and how. They have to ride in the backseat while we persevere despite our fear and angst.
The thing is, God helps us to do all the things God calls us to do. I often feel afraid when God calls me to do something. That fear is often how I recognize God’s call. It sounds weird, but when an opportunity emerges that has some energy to it, and it kind of scares me, I realize I’m scared because I’m probably going to do it. If I’m going say no and walk away from it, there’s no reason to be afraid, right? If I’m going to move headlong into a challenge, dang, that’s scary! But it doesn’t stop me from moving headlong into the challenge. That movement forward is the work of the Spirit, and somehow, despite the fear, there’s a peace that comes too.
So, friends, when our hearts are troubled or afraid, God is with us. Maybe we’re afraid because God is calling us to risk or to grow, and we know we’re going to say yes. Maybe we’re troubled because we’ve become aware of great injustice, and we’re called to challenge it. Maybe our sadness is grief, and that grief shows us how much we love. Maybe we’re afraid because life is uncertain and we fear the worst could happen, and that’s okay too. God offers us peace and love in whatever states our hearts are in. When our hearts are troubled or afraid, that’s a space of openness in which we can allow God to draw near to us, a space in which we can receive God’s love and peace. We’re not supposed to navigate life’s difficulties and hurts alone; we’re meant to surrender all of it to God, who loves us through all the movements of our hearts.
For Reflection:
If you take a moment to go inward a little, what do you notice about how you’re feeling. What is the state of your heart now?
When your heart is troubled or afraid, how do you deal with that? How do you pray through that? Do you pray through that? And how is God with you?
Maybe you could spend some quiet time with God and allow God to speak to your heart, seeing what emerges and what God has to say.
By Sister Leslie Keener, CDP
Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. She directs retreats, meets with people for spiritual direction, and serves as the vocation director for her community. She enjoys music, dancing, the joy of the resurrection, and Easter candy.