Talking to God About My Feelings, and Talking to My Feelings About God

Anyone who has experienced chronic pain and/or chronic illness will tell you these experiences can function as a profound kind of grief. Physically, they hurt. Emotionally, they take a toll. Relationally, they can leave one with fewer friends. It’s not going too far to say that it may feel as if a kind of death occurs.

It is profoundly good news, then, that the Bible repeatedly instructs us and shows us that crying out to God in our suffering isn’t simply acceptable, it’s encouraged. Crying out to God in our pain is the essence of lamenting. Craig Svensson offers a keen definition. He says, “Lament has two simple parts: (1) talk to God about your feelings, and then (2) talk to your feelings about God. In other words, express your agony to God. Voice the deepest feelings of your heart in prayer. Then speak truth to your heart. Settle your soul with solid truth.”

When we talk to God about our feelings, we are echoing the tenor of so many of the Psalms. For example, the psalmist in Psalm 42 at one point states, “O God my rock…Why have you forgotten me? Why must I wander around in grief…?” (v. 9) This is deep and vulnerable trust in God on display. And lest we tread too cautiously, God invites this kind of intimacy. David says, “Hear me as I pray, O LORD. Be merciful and answer me! My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, “LORD, I am coming.” (Ps. 27:7-8) Did you catch that? God invites David to come and talk with him. And then David pours out his heart.

But did you also notice Svensson’s second half of lament’s definition? After we have talked to our Father about our feelings, we talk back to our feelings about God. Going back to Psalm 42, the psalmist twice asks/exhorts himself, “Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Savior and my God!” (vv. 5, 11) The psalmist is talking to himself, taking himself to task. The fact that he resolutely puts his hope in God and believes that he will praise him again tells us implicitly that he believes God is worthy of hope and praise. Philippians 4:8 is another prime example of what it looks like to talk to our feelings about who God is. All that is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and admirable finds its genesis in God. Therefore, doctrine is not dry and crusty. Doctrine serves as a compass that orients us in God’s universe and points us to true north.

We belong to a God who is as gentle as he is strong, and strong as he is gentle. Therefore, talk to him when in sorrow; he will not stiff-arm you. And talk to yourself about God when in sorrow; this is the spiritual equivalent of finding land when marooned at sea.

This post is the ninth in a series deriving from the “Chronic Pain & Illness” seminar that took place at Rocky Creek in September 2025. If you’d like to receive the PDF note packet and audio version of that seminar, you may email allen@rockycreek.church.