God Can Handle Your Honesty

[God Can Handle Your Honesty]( Current Teaching Series [How God Turns Setbacks Into Comebacks]( [Listen to Today's Broadcast]( [God Can Handle Your Honesty]( By Rick Warren — 10/23/2023 [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Pinterest]( [Email](mailto:?subject=I'd%20like%20to%20share%20a%20Daily%20Devotional%20from%20Pastor%20Rick%20with%20you&body= “Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord.” Lamentations 2:19 (NLT) You’ve just had an awful setback. You’ve lost a job. You’ve ended a relationship. You’ve failed in some way. What do you next? Do you just grin and bear it? Do you tell God what you think he wants to hear? No, the first thing you should do is to tell God how you feel—unload your pain. When you’re honest with God about your emotions, it’s actually an act of worship. Job is a great example of this. Job loses everything—his family, his livestock, his home, and his wealth. But the Bible doesn’t sugarcoat his response: “Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship” (Job 1:20 NLT). Job grieved the way people did in the Middle East back in his day, by tearing his robe and shaving his head. But then he worshiped God. Any time you experience loss, you’ll face four emotions: ●  Anger: Why did this happen to me? ●  Grief: What have I lost? ●  Shock: What’s going on here? ●  Fear: What’s going to happen next? When you experience a setback, you need to express every one of those emotions. And God can handle them because he is the one who gave them to you. In fact, the only reason you have any emotions at all is because you are made in the image of God. God is an emotional God; he has emotions. He can handle your anger, your grief, your shock, and your fear. Job was brutally honest with God, and you can be too. Job said, “I cannot keep from speaking. I must express my anguish. My bitter soul must complain” (Job 7:11 NLT). The right response to a setback isn’t to fake a good response. God never wants you to fake an emotion. In one of the most difficult setbacks in the entire Bible, after Jerusalem had been looted and destroyed and the Israelites had been killed, enslaved, and exiled, the prophet Jeremiah writes this: “Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord” (Lamentations 2:19 NLT). With God, honesty is always the best policy. [PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick >>]( Talk It Over - Do you find it difficult to be honest with God about your emotions? Why or why not? - Has there been an experience in your life when your honesty drew you closer to God? - Is there a difficult situation that you haven’t fully grieved? How can you be honest with God about your feelings today? The post [God Can Handle Your Honesty]( appeared first on [Pastor Rick's Daily Hope](. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Pinterest]( [Email](mailto:?subject=I'd%20like%20to%20share%20a%20Daily%20Devotional%20from%20Pastor%20Rick%20with%20you&body= [Get The Power of Gratitude when you give a gift to support Daily Hope!]( Gratitude makes you more resistant to stress and increases your happiness and satisfaction. So it should come as no surprise that the Bible tells us to, "Rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). But it’s not always easy to feel grateful. That’s why Pastor Rick created The Power of Gratitude, a Bible study filled with Scripture, teaching, exercises, quotes, prayers, and journal pages to help you develop the lifelong habit of expressing gratitude to God. [LEARN MORE]( [Complete Audio Series (Purchase)]( Includes 8 full-length messages from Pastor Rick's series How God Turns Setbacks Into Comebacks. [LEARN MORE]( [Series Summary]( Message 1: When You've Had a Business Setback Message 2: When Your Setback Seems Irreversible Message 3: When a Setback Isn't Your Fault Message 4: When a Setback Leaves You Emotionally Empty Message 5: When You Feel Like Giving Up Message 6: When Others Keep Setting You Back Message 7: When a Setback Fills You with Fear Message 8: When No One Understands Your Goal [PLAY TODAY'S BROADCAST]( Pastor Rick Warren [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [Linkedin]( Enjoy today's devotional? Listen to Pastor Rick’s daily audio teaching at [PastorRick.com]( Did someone forward this devotional to you? [Subscribe to Pastor Rick Warren's Daily Devotional.]( Rick Warren is the founding pastor of [Saddleback Church]( one of America’s largest and most influential churches. Pastor Rick is the author of the New York Times bestseller [The Purpose Driven Life](. His book [The Purpose Driven Church]( was named one of the 100 Christian books that changed the 20th century. 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