In my 27 years as a believer, I have found that how I am feeling before I open the Bible can profoundly affect how I perceive what I am studying at that moment. This is particularly true if I am in the midst of some circumstantial struggle that has contributed to a pre-existing sense of anxiety or depression. In this case, the seemingly harsher verses of Scripture seem to jump off the page and embed themselves in my disquieted mind and heart. These verses all seem meant for me, and only me. At the same time, the words I read about God’s love, mercy and grace seem meant for someone else. It is as if the sterner language is boldfaced and the softer words are grayed-out in comparison.

Sometimes (though not as much as I would like) the opposite happens. When I’m in a positive place emotionally and I sit down to do my devotions I can, at least to some extent, apply all the warm and reassuring verses to my life. I have a sense that I’m easily accepting these encouraging words into my, now, peaceful mind and heart.

Of course, whether I am in a bad place or a good one, the words of the Bible have not changed. What has changed is my emotional state which can pose a considerable challenge to my ability to interpret the Word of God. The primary danger is that I will decide who God is to me based on my feelings, bad or good, rather than on the objective truth of God’s nature as revealed in Scripture.

We fallen human beings are notoriously ineffective in discerning Truth (the capital “T” being key). We see this in the moral confusion and self-destructive tendencies of so many people on our planet today; being Christians does not exempt us from these things. We also can, like a faulty radar system, fail to transmit reality accurately and end up going off the moral “deep-end” to the detriment of our own souls. The best defense against this is in having consistent knowledge that, to paraphrase Martin Luther, God is good and He is good to us” [italics mine]. One of the principal ways we get such knowledge is through encountering the character of God in His book, the Bible.

The problem is that we cannot accurately discern the truth of God’s character if we always allow our pre-existing emotional state to dictate how we understand Him. In this circumstance we can err on the side of God being all about justice or, otherwise, being all about love. In either case we are allowing our feelings at that moment to create a “God” who does not exist. The true nature of our Lord is not found in the extremes that arise when we let a random verse, tainted by an out of context interpretation influenced by our emotions, determine who we think He is.

So what’s the solution to this problem? To be honest, I haven’t yet fully found one. Letting my mood determine my understanding of Scripture remains an issue for me. I will say, though, that recognizing and acknowledging that this dynamic exists helps me to work on finding a solution for it. We cannot fix a problem we don’t realize we have.

Maybe writing this essay is a part of my finding an answer to this problem. And, perhaps, if you are like-minded, reading this essay might be a part of you doing the same.