Your emotions are not a burden. They’re a path back to God’s heart. An excerpt from the foreword by Joni Eareckson Tada: “With the book you are holding, you have stumbled upon the best of guides. I should know. I first read The Cry of the Soul decades ago when I was still sorting through a lot of hurt and frustration connected with my quadriplegia (yes, I read it on that music stand holding a mouth stick). The Cry of the Soul showed me what to do with my anger and hurt―not stuff it under the carpet of my conscience, or minimize it, but actually do something good with it.” All emotion―whether positive or negative―can give us a glimpse of the true nature of God. We want to control our negative emotions and dark desires. God wants us to recognize them as the cry of our soul to be made right with Him. Beginning with the Psalms, Cry of the Soul explores what Scripture says about our darker emotions and points us to ways of honoring God as we faithfully embrace the full range of our emotional life. With gentle wisdom and biblical guidance, Dr. Dan B. Allender and Dr. Tremper Longman offer a roadmap for: Processing your God-given emotions―even the dark ones―in a healthy way - What the Psalms teach about wrestling with pain, suffering, and brokenness as a Christian - The positive and negative sides of anger, fear, jealousy, and despair, and what they reveal about God’s character Discover how emotions are not a hindrance to a deeper relationship with God―instead they’re the cry of our souls for His restoration. Open a window into your heart. So often we find ourselves caught between extremes. Either we feel too much or not at all. We tend to ignore our feelings or fight them off as if they were an enemy. But all emotion, whether positive or negative, can give us a glimpse of the true nature of God. We want to control our negative emotions and dark desires. God wants us to recognize them as the cry of our soul to be made right with Him. Beginning with the Psalms, Dr. Dan Allender and Dr. Tremper Longman III explore what Scripture says about our darker emotions. In this groundbreaking work they reveal that often our attempts to control our emotions, far from an attempt to be Christlike, are really a form of rebellion against God or an attempt to flee from him. The Cry of the Soul How Our Emotions Reveal Our Deepest Questions About God By Dan B. Allender, TREMPER LONGMAN III Tyndale House Publishers Copyright © 2015 Joni Eareckson Tada All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-57683-180-9 Contents Foreword: Before You Begin ..., ix, Introduction, xv, 1. Emotions: The Cry of the Soul, 1, 2. The Psalms: The Voice of the Soul, 11, 3. Relationships: The Context of the Cry, 23, 4. Unrighteous Anger: A Refusal to Wait for Justice, 35, 5. Righteous Anger: An Assault against Injustice, 45, 6. Unrighteous Fear: A Destructive Anxiety, 59, 7. Constructive Fear: The Fear of the Lord, 73, 8. Dark Desire: Envy and Jealousy, 87, 9. Divine Desire: The Jealous Love of God, 101, 10. Abandonment and Despair: The Loss of Hope, 113, 11. Redemptive Despair: The Restoration of Hope, 127, 12. Unholy Contempt: Evil's Mockery, 143, 13. Holy Contempt: The Mockery of Evil, 157, 14. The Corrosive Power of Human Shame, 171, 15. The Redemptive Power of Divine Shame, 187, 16. The Mystery of God, 203, 17. The Goodness of God, 221, Notes, 245, Acknowledgments, 247, About the Authors, 251, CHAPTER 1 Emotions: The Cry of the Soul Our emotions connect our inner world to the ups and downs of life. Sometimes the connection is more than we can bear. A woman whose husband had been fired grimaced as she told me what had happened. I asked her how she felt. Although her face began to contort in pain, she calmly stated: "I'm irritated that he was used for twenty-four years and then dropped to save on health care costs. He's fifty-four. Where is he going to find a job now? How am I going to keep him strong? It isn't fair." Her voice choked back confusion, anger, and fear. I knew something about this woman's life. She was pleasant but determined. Her withdrawn, somewhat depressed husband did his duty each day and returned home to receive his orders for the evening. They lived a dull, conventional life that morally approximated the gospel. Now his job loss had opened the door to struggles in the marriage that they might have avoided by allowing their daily routines to distract them from the emptiness and distance in their lives. Her grimace was the first acknowledgment that heartache was near. The heartache was over loss — job, security, prestige. But the deeper loss centered on dreams that had lain buried since the first years of their marriage. She had entered marriage with the hope that she had found a place of rest — an opportunity to let down and relax without fear. She had dreamed of the kind of intimacy that would allow her to enjoy her femininity. But gradually, those dreams were sold for the securi