All the Feels | Crossroads Young Adults

My name is Jordan. I'm the director for Crossroads Young Adults. I gotta give a special shout out to the balcony. Can we make some noise for the people in the balcony right now? I love you, y'all look beautiful up there. What you just saw right there, that is a quick snippet of the run journey. Basically, Crossroads Church, once a year-ish, takes like five weeks where we all get together, we get in groups, we go through the same content at all locations and all spaces, and it's really just designed to go deep in a short amount of time to get to know people that you may not know otherwise. So if you're someone, as Britt just mentioned, who's in the room, looking to connect with some people, maybe go deeper, just kind of try to find your tribe, find a group of people that you can maybe become even longer-term friends with, this is the greatest opportunity that you could have. You're gonna hear us talking a lot about it over the next few weeks and months. There's gonna be opportunities for you to host a group of people, and opportunities also for you to just join a pre-existing group. So we just wanna put that on your radar, more information coming soon. And then secondly, as you can see,

there's a lot of people in the room tonight, which is amazing. Now, I need to tell you something, yes. It takes a lot of people to actually pull off a night like this. Like a night like this just doesn't magically happen and come together, there's a lot of moving parts. So whether you've been to a young adults gathering or collective night before, maybe it's your first time, after our gathering, like after we dismiss tonight, we are going to do a 10-minute Volunteer 101 and just pitch to you, hey, what if you would be willing to give up like two hours a month, one night a month, to actually help us execute and pull off this gathering so that more young adults in the city of Cincinnati have an opportunity to come and be a part of it. We'd love for you to join the team. We're gonna have snacks, treats, everything that you could want, gonna be upstairs in the library. It's the room that looks like you've been teleported to Hogwarts, there's like a giant chandelier in there. That's how you'll know you're in the right place. 10 minutes after we're done, Volunteer 101, we'd love for you to join the young adults team in that way. Okay. Over the next few months here at collective night, we are gonna talk about emotions.

I was expecting a lot of applause there. Yeah. We're gonna talk about emotions. Tonight we're gonna begin that conversation and over the next few months, we're gonna like drill down, get really into the nitty gritty on a few real specific emotions that a lot of us all experience. And we're gonna spend a few months talking about emotions because I believe that to be a human is to feel. Like to be human is to feel. Now here's the deal. Some of us love talking about our emotions. You're real excited. Like you're gonna be hanging on every word. You're like, I like this. I'm a feeler. I like to talk and process externally my emotions. That's great. Glad you're here. Some of you are like, hold up, what? I don't know about this. Like I often tell people that I don't even have feelings. I'm not really interested in talking about feelings. It may even be difficult for you to name things that you are even feeling right now. Some of us have a hard time getting our emotions under control. And we live in a time where there is no shortage

of language in our culture around emotions. You are a part of a generation that is extremely emotionally fluent. There's a lot of conversation. There's a lot of dialogue. There's a lot of verbiage around therapy and feelings and unique sensitivities and mental health. It's discussed openly online in the public square. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm just saying that I would love for us to acknowledge that simply having more language about emotions does not automatically mean that we are emotionally mature. Like just because we have language and discussion around feelings and emotions, that doesn't automatically equate to us being emotionally healthy people. I believe that God wants you to be emotionally healthy. God wants you to be emotionally healthy. Following God is not about checking your brain and your heart at the door. It's not about turning into a robot who's not allowed to think critically or process your emotions. That's not what it's about. No, your emotional health and your spiritual health, they are inseparable. They are linked together. We cannot grow spiritually while remaining emotionally immature. We just can't do that.

So I want you to hear me tonight. God wants you to understand your emotions. He wants you to process and respond to your emotions, to grow in your ability to be honest about your emotions. Like, he wants those things for you. And I believe that what we choose to do with our emotions either draws us closer to God, or it quietly disengages and disconnects us with him. Last year, 2025, my family and I moved from Wilmington, North Carolina, the beach, to Cincinnati, Ohio. We are now landlocked. Rumor has it, what, like three, four, five feet of snow, you know, coming in this weekend? Like, what am I doing here? We moved, and it was extremely emotional. We had lived in Wilmington for a decade. We were excited because it was like a new chapter of life. I was starting a new job. It's kind of like an adventure. We're like, wait, this is kind of fun. But it was emotional because we were also feeling anxious about who our friends would be, and if we would have any friends to begin with. We were sad because we were saying bye to people that we had grown to love. We were saying bye to a community that we had grown to love. We said bye to the ocean, which maybe was harder than all of that.

We were feeling angry when we moved to Cincinnati, and the house that we just bought had problems. A car broke down, and it felt like I was just flushing money down the toilet. I was like, I'm just handing out money free. Like, everybody, who wants money? I was frustrated by that. We were feeling surprised when I came home from work just a few weeks to being in the city, and my wife said, hey, I got something to tell you. We're having another baby. And I said, what? Surprise! I was all over the place emotionally. Sometimes I didn't even know what I was feeling. I didn't have language for it. I was having a hard time learning how to navigate it, process it. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with it, and I was working overtime on my default strategy for processing emotions. Some of you may be able to relate with this. Okay, Jordan, you're gonna allow yourself to feel the good emotions. Like, whichever ones you have said in your brain, these ones are good. You can feel those. So, excited about having a new baby? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can feel that. Joyful and happy about starting a new job

and it being a nice new adventure? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, you can have that one. And then, the second half of my strategy is ignore, suppress, avoid, sweep under the rug all of the bad emotions. Whichever ones you've decided are bad emotions, negative emotions, just act like those ones aren't there. And as I've reflected on our first few months in Cincinnati, I realize disconnecting from my emotions wasn't just me disconnecting from feelings. No, it was me disconnecting from God. I think the challenge for many of us comes when the two worlds of faith and feelings collide. It gets weird. It gets a little confusing. I wanna show you the feelings wheel. Some of you have maybe seen the feelings wheel before. I know it's a little bit small and I know there's a lot going on right there. But, the feelings wheel was created in like the 1980s-ish. There's a lot of different variations of it and it was created to help people name more nuanced emotions. I think a lot of times people just don't really have good language for what they're experiencing. And so you'll see like the primary emotions in the center of the wheel. And then on the outside of the wheel, you'll see like more angles and different versions and levels of intensity of the primary feelings.

And as I look at that wheel and I think about my faith, I have some questions about that. Like, am I allowed to feel all the stuff on that wheel? Does God know all the feelings on that wheel? Does he care about all the people who have the feelings that are listed on that wheel? How should I know if I'm supposed to trust my feelings and follow my feelings? And how should I know when my feelings are possibly leading me astray? Are my feelings valid? Do my feelings always need to be fulfilled? If I'm honest with God about how I'm feeling, is he gonna be mad at me? Like, it's all things that run through my brain. And it's confusing. Because I think in many ways our culture has almost like idolized emotions. We've idolized them. We've put them on the throne, the seat of honor. We've told people, yeah, just follow your heart. Fulfill all your emotions, desires. And that's just not what the Bible teaches. But also I think that the church has tried. to over-correct the culture's teaching on emotions, and we've swung the pendulum so far to the other side that many people who've grown up in the church actually believe that if culture idolizes them, well, me as a church person, I need to dismiss them, or even worse, demonize them.

I've heard Christians who mean really well say things to me like, well, you just shouldn't feel that way. Just pray about it, have you tried just praying about it? Like, just don't think about it, just pray about it. Don't take your emotions so seriously. You can't trust your feelings. Have you tried just not being sad about it? Has anyone ever told you that? You're just like, I'm just really sad and I'm struggling with something, and someone's like, just like, don't be. You're like, wow, that's good. I've never considered that, that I should just not worry about the thing that I'm worried about. That's great, thank you, super helpful. We know that doesn't work. We know that's people who mean well, they just are trying to help, but it's not helping, and I would be willing to bet that most of us in this room are stuck between following our feelings blindly or pretending like they don't exist at all. So what are we supposed to do with all of this? The Bible, good news for you, it's filled with stories of people, real humans, who experienced every single emotion that you saw on that feelings wheel, and it also tells the story of a God who also feels the things that are present

on that wheel as well. And I believe that if emotions were a hindrance to faith, then the Bible just wouldn't talk about them. It would just avoid them, but instead the exact opposite is true. The longest book in the Bible is a book called the Book of Psalms. It just means songs, and it's written by a man named King David, and the Book of Psalms is quite literally a man's emotional journal or diary. That's basically what it is. It's an emotional journal. When David was a teenager, God was looking to appoint the next king of Israel, and the Bible says that David was actually almost overlooked to be the next king because people didn't think that he looked the part. He didn't look like a future king. And so God tells the prophet Samuel, you are going to go out and anoint the future king. Samuel shows up to the house where David lives in, and David has a lot of different brothers, and Samuel's looking at all of his brothers like, ooh, I think this guy could be the future king. Oh, that guy looks like he could be future king material. He's tall, he's handsome, he's got it all together. And this is what the Bible says in 1 Samuel 16, seven. The Lord said to Samuel, don't judge by his appearance or his height.

I have rejected him. So all the people, Samuel was like, I think that's the guy. God goes, that's not the guy. The Lord doesn't see things the way that you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord, the Lord looks at the heart. David's legacy throughout the entirety of the Bible is that he is known as a man after God's own heart. That does not mean that David is perfect. No, it means that David gives us a master class at what it looks like for a person to bring their entire inner life before God. The first step to you getting emotionally healthy and mature is you as an individual being able to grow in the ability to understand deep down that God cares about the inside you more than the outside you. That's the first step. It's your ability to be honest about the state of your inner life, your heart before God. That's the key, not just to emotional health, but to spiritual health. As I mentioned, David is the primary author of the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms is David putting his heart onto paper. He lays it all out. And if you can think of a feeling on that feelings wheel, chances are David wrote a song about it.

What you begin to notice as you read through the book of Psalms is that David does not view his emotions as things to be concealed. He doesn't view his emotions as things that need to be over controlled or things that must be coped with. No, David views his emotions as one of the greatest opportunities that he has to connect. Connect with God. David understands something. It's very important. He understands that he feels because God feels. David understands that he is emotional because God is emotional. He understands that if he taps into his inner life, his emotions actually allow him to sync up his heart with the heart of God. The Psalms, they really help us reframe our emotions, not as things to be idolized or things to be avoided, but as gifts from God that allow us to go to a new place relationally with him. I just want you to see a few examples of David pouring out his inner life to God. We're gonna read some of the songs that he wrote. David starts by bringing his delight, his joy, and his gratitude to God. Look at Psalms 16, 11. This is what he says. You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence

and the pleasures of living with you forever. So David connects joy and gratitude to the presence of God. Now I know what all of you are thinking. Well, yeah, obviously it's easy to follow God when you're happy. When life's good, well, yeah, duh, of course he was grateful. Of course things were going in his direction. Yeah, of course he can connect with God. He's feeling great. Yeah, I agree. And I actually wanna show you what I think many of us in the room actually think about the feelings wheel. We actually think that these emotions right here are the only ones that we can be honest with God about. It's happiness and maybe a little bit of surprised. That's all you got. God, I'll connect with you when I'm happy and when I'm excited sometimes. Everything else on the list, I don't know. I don't know if I'm supposed to feel guilty if I feel those other things. Maybe someone has told me, hey, if you're gonna feel the negative stuff, how about you should just try to not do that, please? I don't wanna talk about that right now. And you have flipped a switch in your brain and turned all of those things off.

They're now gray. They don't work like they're supposed to work. Everything else needs to be suppressed, ignored, or downplayed. And that's why I want you to see that David also brings his grief, his hurt, and his emptiness to God. This is one of countless examples in the Bible of David being discouraged. This is Psalm 52, verse five. This is what it says. 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. So David is broken, but he's still turning to God. He's discouraged, but that doesn't stop him from praising God. And I wonder if some of us in the room tonight find ourselves in a position where we could turn to God in the middle of a discouragement, but we've chose to numb ourselves. I feel this way, but maybe if I could escape and numb the feeling, then I don't feel anything at all, and then I'm off the hook. And that's the strategy that we've chosen to take. David brings his frustration, his anger, his bitterness to God. Psalm 13, verse one says, God, how long are you gonna forget about me?

Forever? God, how long are you gonna look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long is my enemy going to have the upper hand? I think some of us are like, God, do you not care about what's going on in the world right now? God, do you not care? How people feel? The injustice that takes place in our society, are you just turning your head and looking the other way like it doesn't even bother you and you're not fazed by it? God, do you not see my individual situation? Do you not feel the things that I'm feeling? How long are you gonna ignore me? Forever? David brings his fear, his anxiety, and his nerves to God. Psalm 56, people are coming to attack him, they're trying to kill him, and he says, I'm constantly hounded by those who slander me. Many are boldly attacking me, but when I'm afraid, God, I'm gonna trust you. God, I don't feel. like you're present right now, but I trust that you are. God, even when I don't feel like you're with me, I believe deep down that you are. Even when I'm not feeling it, even when it's not easy for me to connect with you, I'm trusting that you are working things out for me and that you've not left me and turned your back on me,

you're right next to me. Lastly, David brings his shame and his failure to God. Okay, so, as I mentioned earlier, David, a man after God's own heart, but not a perfect man. So, David, surprisingly enough to some of you, King David, like the guy who killed Goliath, a mighty warrior, like all these things, David sleeps with another man's wife, then he tries to cover it up, and a man gets killed in his cover-up plan, then all of it gets exposed, it comes to light, and then David writes Psalm 51 as an expression of his brokenness, his shame, his failure, and at the end of Psalm 51, he gets to this place where he goes, okay, God, so you already see all this, it is a mess, what do you want me to do about it? Like, how do I make it right? I feel like a failure, what do I do? And he writes, God, you do not desire a sacrifice. Like, that's not gonna make this better. If it did, I would offer one. You don't want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit because you will not reject a broken and repentant heart. The translation really is, God, you do not want any type of religious activity, you don't want any type of ritualistic behavior if it's disconnected from the inner me.

You're not interested in this if it's removed from this. God, you're not about the Bible plans that I can do, my church attendance, you're not about, like, you don't care about any of the religious stuff that you think is gonna make you right with me. No, no, no, God, all you want is my honest inner life before you. No matter the feeling, David uses what's going on on the inside to connect with God. It's not an idolization of emotions. David's not controlled by his feelings, he's not a slave to what he's feeling. It's also not a demonization of emotions. He doesn't try to explain them away. He doesn't try to hide them or suppress them. No, no, no, he picks a third way, and it's a better way. David submits his emotions to God, the creator of emotions. He knows what he's feeling, he takes it to God, he names it, he praises God, and he says, God, I feel this way. I don't even know what to do about it. But this is how I feel. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, but I am going to connect with you before I do anything else with this feeling. I feel this way, I'm unsure. God, I know that it's a gift from you so that I can connect with you, and I'm gonna allow you to form me

and inform the decision that I make about how to respond to this feeling. I also don't want you to think that David was this weird, all too consumed, and in his feels, softy. That you just can't relate to. No, David was a king. He was a military leader. He's a warrior, he's described in the Bible as a mighty man of valor and courage, a man of war. He is anything but weak. God doesn't want us to feel less. No, he doesn't see the expression of feelings as weakness. He wants you to bring your feelings to him. I learned that I was really bad at this a few years ago when my wife and I took an amazing vacation trip to Puerto Rico, yes. It was an incredible trip. We ate great food, we did some surfing, we explored the area, amazing. In the very last day, I said, you know what? I wanna do something real touristy. We hadn't really done a lot of touristy stuff, and I was like, just one day, we gotta go all in on not being a local, I don't even care, I'm not even gonna be embarrassed, we're doing it, and I booked us a kayaking excursion through the mountains of Puerto Rico. I was like, oh, this is awesome. So we show up. There's hiking, there's kayaking,

there's going through caves, there's drinking natural spring water, it's amazing. And there's this spot where we have to kayak under like a mountain into a underground cave and there's a river there and it's pitch black. I mean like, this is what we're about to go into. There's bats flying over your head as you're going through, barely any room above your head. I'm like, this is amazing. And so I said, you know what? I gotta get my phone out of my bag so I gotta document this. So touristy. And I'm taking this video, it's also pitch black in there, the video was horrible. And I drop my phone in the river. We make it to the other side, trying to act cool. So annoyed. I've ruined vacation. My wife is gonna kill me. I'm angry. I feel embarrassed. I mean like, how stupid. Dude, what are you doing? That's so dumb. I'm just beating myself up, totally disengaging from the rest of the trip. We make it to the other side and I just can't hide it anymore and I pull Lauren to the side and I say,

babe, I gotta tell you something. I know, I haven't even told you what I've done, but I just, it's bad. I drop my phone. She's like, what are you, you know, just like, idiot. You know, just like, what are we doing here? So we go through the rest of the trip. I'm totally disengaged, totally disconnected and we were doing some cool stuff. They're teaching you how to like wrap leaves to be natural cups so that you can pick up the most beautiful, fresh, purified spring water that you've ever had in your life to sip it and I'm like, this is stupid. I don't care about this. We're hiking, we're doing amazing sightseeing and you have to do a down and back. So we gotta go back through that river on the way home. I'm gonna face my enemy. Nothing else was wrong about the trip. My emotions just completely derailed me from experiencing the beauty of it. And Lauren, my wife, she says, I think that we should just tell our tour guide, Edwin, that you dropped your phone in the river. And I'm like, did you see how dark it was in there? Who knows how deep that river is? That was hours ago. It's gone, the current has probably taken it somewhere.

I'm just like, no. I'm embarrassed, I'm angry, I'm annoyed, my pride is in the way. These people on the tour with us cannot find out that I did this. My worst fear, holding up a trip because of my stupidity. And I'm like, no, just please, it's fine, we're just gonna go home and get a new one and my wife goes, hey, Mr. Tour Guide, see, when we were coming on the trip on the way in here, my husband, bless his heart, he dropped his phone in the river and Edwin immediately goes, why didn't you tell me about this? I was like, what are you talking about? It's gone, it's completely, for sure, 100% gone. And he goes, we have to find it. Okay, we'll stop the trip, everyone can wait here, you and I, do you know where you dropped it? I'm like, I don't know where I dropped it, no. We're not doing this. So prideful, feeling some type of way about all of this. He goes, no, we're gonna find it. I was like, okay. We hold up the entire trip and Edwin and I start to walk into the middle of the cave, pitch black, we're in way steep water, I'm holding the little stupid headlamp that they give you above the water, and Edwin's like, do you think it was over here?

And I'm like, bro, I'm so over this. This is so dumb. I just wanna go home, get this over with. Five minutes go by, no phone. 10 minutes go by, no phone. 15, 20, 25, 30 minutes. I just, every few minutes, I just look back and the whole tour is just like. I'm like, how did I get here? So far away from home, dropped my phone in the river, you know, it's like the whole thing, like how do I even get here? And I just tell Edwin over and over again, bro, like, it's okay. It's really okay. And every time I did that, he would get up on my face and he would say, it is not okay. We are not leaving until we find it. A few minutes later, my back is turned. I hear a noise. I see a. Light, and down a ways away, Edwin is holding my phone. The light like comes on immediately. That thing's been underwater for hours. He says, is this your phone? I'm like, yeah, obviously it's my phone. Yeah, get that thing. And he just looks at me and he's, I'll never forget this. He says, I just wish you would have told me sooner. Like, I'm the guide.

There's nobody that knows this terrain better than me. I know how it feels in here. I know all the nooks and the crannies. I've never panicked in this cave. He helped me recover what was lost and the kayak trip didn't fall apart because I lost my phone. The kayak trip fell apart because I let my emotions isolate me and disengage me from the guide when I had access to him all along and my help was right next to me and my feelings just got in the way. That's what happened. I need you to understand this. This is how many of us view God. There's anger in our heart. There's shame, there's disappointment, there's grief, there's worry and instead of connecting with the guide who's like, I wish you just would have come to me sooner. I know how this feels. I'm ready to help you recover what was lost. No, we disengage. We just disconnect. We isolate. David understood something that I completely forgot in that moment. That when something is lost, when things feel chaotic, when life feels overwhelming, when it feels out of control, the answer is never withdrawal. It's always press into the uncomfortable inner life

to connect with God. That's the answer every time and I just need to show you this last song because I think it gives you a very simple blueprint for how you can move out of this place to engage with emotions in a healthy way for the rest of your life. Psalm 62, eight. So simple, this is what it says. My people, trust in him, meaning God, at all times. Pour out your heart to him. Our God is our refuge. Here's the blueprint. God, I trust you in every circumstance even when I don't feel it. I'm gonna trust you in every circumstance even when I'm not feeling it. Number two is I pour my heart out to you. My inner life, the depths of me that you already know but that you're waiting for me to communicate to you, my inner life is not going to be hidden from you. I'm bringing them to you. And then number three, I can trust you and I can pour my heart out to you because you are my refuge. You're my safe place. You're my safe haven, my sanctuary. I can connect with you intimately and find you when I seek you because the Bible promises that when you draw near to God

every single time, he returns the favor and draws near to you. I wonder how many of us some of us maybe have spent our entire lives trying to connect with God only from an intellectual standpoint. Is the Bible really like scientifically true? Could miracles like actually happen? You know, like I don't really know. Theological positions and perspective and debates and logistics and logical reasoning. I don't think any of that's bad. I just think that if all you ever do in attempts to connect with God comes from this, you're missing it. You're missing it. Tonight you have an opportunity to connect with God emotionally. You have that opportunity. It's right here in the room. You have the freedom to feel and you have the freedom to direct and express those feelings to God. This is not about emotions getting onto the throne of your life. That's not what it's about. This is about pouring your heart out to God and connecting with him so that he can guide your response to those feelings you feel because God feels. And wherever you're at tonight on the feelings wheel,

God cares, he knows, he sees, he feels with you and he's ready to be your refuge. If you will pour out your inner life to him. I'm gonna pray for you in a moment. We're gonna sing a few songs and this is an opportunity in our gathering for us to just set the table for you to have an encounter with God. So some of you in the room tonight, maybe you've disengaged with God because you've put emotions on the throne and they've turned into your God. You're dominated by him. They're pulling you around and tugging you all over the place and you're like, man, I gotta like talk with someone and maybe I need some prayer tonight about how to just get these things a little bit more under control and learning how to grow in my ability to take them to God before I just lash out. Some of you tonight just need this moment, this opportunity because you've disengaged with God because of how you've been feeling lately and your strategy was, okay, if this is really hard for me to feel or process, maybe I need to numb the pain, maybe I need to act like it's not there, maybe I need to suppress it, ignore it, avoid it. It's not working.

It's only creating distance, not just from me knowing and connecting with myself personally, but also it's creating distance between me and God and I just need an opportunity for someone else to help lift me up and to help me get my eyes onto God the refuge. So I'm gonna invite you actually right now to stand. I'm gonna pray for you and as we sing these songs, you are free to move and you're free to feel. We have prayer volunteers in corners. I know there's a lot of people out there. Just find somebody with a purple lanyard. A lot of them are wearing white hoodies. They wanna pray with you, help you process and help you connect. Some of you are like, no, I just need just a moment. I'm gonna connect with God emotionally maybe for the first time in my life and allow the words of this music to penetrate my heart and unlock some things so that I can take them before the throne of God. Jesus, tonight we thank you. You're so good to us. Thank you for creating emotions, God, they're gifts from you. Allow us to bust down barriers so that we can tap into them now so that we can know you more. God, this isn't a cry fest just for the sake of us getting up in our fields. No, that's not what it is.

We want you, we want the real thing. We know you're ready to connect with us and our inner self. We thank you in Jesus' name, amen.