Psalm 32:3 “When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.”
Proverbs 17:22 “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.”
Did you know that when you suppress your unhealed emotions, your frustrations, your anger and your sin, that it doesn’t go away, rather it eats away at you on the inside? Have you ever had someone say something or do something to you and you just exploded on them? Then when you calm down you ask yourself, where did that come from?
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and then you step on a proverbial land mine and they just blow up at you, for what seems like an unsolicited reason? I think we all have done this and had this done to us, but very few people realize why this happens. We don’t realize that our souls have a maximum capacity level of which they cannot take anymore suppression, so it explodes or seeps out sideways.
Men typically do not like to talk about their “feelings,” they would rather act like they have none. Now, this is not a criticism, but rather a conditioning that has taken place. Our world does not see men who share their feelings as strong, but rather as weak, so they are conditioned to not talk about them.
Unfortunately, this conditioning has led to a lot of destructive behaviors and the No. 1 medical issue for men is a heart attack. When we suppress our feelings—for God created us with feelings and the Scriptures are riddled with a God who feels—King David says, our bodies waste away. Our souls were not created for the suppression of feelings, but for the confession of feelings.
Now this is not a license to say whatever comes to your mind, or express every feeling you have anywhere and everywhere. We have to temper this with the fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5:22). Many people are living at maximum capacity of suppressed frustrations, anger, disappointment, resentment, offense, grief and many other pains.
The Bible says in 1 John 1:9, if you confess your sins to one another you may be healed. Our healing is founded not in suppression and acting like everything is OK and calling that spiritual. It is in confessing to one another, what is going on inside of us. If you don’t get it out of you, it is going to dry up your bones or waste away your spirit.
Confession can be done through writing, singing, talking, shouting (in the woods where no one can hear you), crying, painting, just to name a few. People are struggling with something that is easily healed if only they will let it out. You do not have to tell everyone, nor should you, but you need to tell someone.
You will surprise yourself at how free you feel, not when you unload for hours on someone, but when you are honest with yourself about what is going on inside. Passion is an inside job; worship in truth is an inside job; joy is an inside job; peace is an inside job.
If our insides are filled with suppressed-not-confessed garbage, there is no wonder we have limited passion, an inability to hear the truth that will set us free, and are not enjoying the abundant life we have been promised. It’s time to confess not suppress, so we can live again. This may be the very revival you are crying out for.
Lisa Great is an author, speaker and blogger with Mouthpiece Ministries International. She has been in ministry for over 25 years, she has a BA in Youth and Family Studies, a MA in Education. She can be reached at mouthpieceministries.net; mouthpieceministries.wordpress.com; or on her Facebook page, Lisa Great.
