Emotional Validation Isn’t Always Loving

Imagine you’re sitting across the table from a church friend. You’ve known him since he began attending the church a few years ago, and for the last several months, he’s been a part of the small group you lead. He shares with you over coffee that his marriage isn’t great.

His wife, in his words, is controlling, demanding, and constantly critical of him. “I’m extremely angry,” he shares. “To be honest, I go back and forth between angry outbursts and withdrawing to daydream about what life would be like if I never married her. She drives me crazy.”

Here’s a different scenario. You’re a women’s ministry leader in your church, and a young woman tells you she’s been hurt by another member—a friend of hers and yours. But when she opens up about the offense, you struggle to track with her. The accusations are vague, and it becomes evident she’s reading offenses into what seem to you benign comments.

One more hypothetical. A few single thirtysomethings in your church request to meet with the elders to discuss “problematic” developments. During the meeting, they share that they’re offended by how the pastor has, in three consecutive sermons, applied the text to marriage and parenting but never once to singleness. Additionally, the church is planning a marriage-focused Sunday school class in the fall, without offering a corresponding class on singleness. They demand a “listening session” where the elders hear them share what it’s like to be a single in the church.

To Validate or Not to Validate?

Each of these cases is unique. But each raises questions: How should you respond to the feelings (angry, hurt, offended) being expressed? Should you validate or challenge them?

If you’re a pastor, you face these questions all the time. On the one hand, in an effort to show grace, you want to validate the feelings of those who confide in you. On the other hand, in an effort to pursue truth, you want to redirect or steer them away from misleading emotions—and the potential sins and idols they reveal.

How should you respond in delicate situations like this?

Contemporary Leaning: Validate!

The solution in contemporary culture is simple: We should always validate feelings.

This is an important tenet in modern therapy:

• “Validation helps (people) feel heard and understood, reducing feelings of isolation and promoting emotional healing.”
• “Validating someone shows you understand their feelings and point of view, even when you disagree.”
• “Validation helps a person feel cared for and supported. Yet, too often a person can feel that their inner experiences are judged and denied. This can lead to low self-worth or feelings of shame.”

Validation isn’t without biblical support. One could argue, for example, that the psalms—with the language they give to anger, grief, betrayal, and doubt—are a divine validation of our emotions.

Or consider Job’s story. He lost everything, and in response, a torrent of anger, outrage, pain, confusion, and depression poured out of his mouth. His friends, at first, sat silently, mourning with him, letting him grieve and “process”: “They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great” (Job 2:13). But the moment they began to correct his response, they fell into sin.

Better Response

Does the spirit of the age, then, align with biblical wisdom, or should we be wary of the rush to validate? What’s a biblically wise approach to responding to emotions and knowing when—and when not—to validate them?

Here are three recommendations that might help as you assess the right response.

1. Differentiate between acknowledgment and validation.

It’s unhelpful to validate some emotional responses. James said, as one example, that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). But it’s also unhelpful to pretend people aren’t feeling something they’re feeling.

We should learn to recognize what those around us are feeling first, before rushing to affirm or correct. We can be emotionally perceptive without being enslaved to emotions. Acknowledging the reality of emotions is different from evaluating their health or helpfulness. We can help people feel heard and loved without affirming them in their sin or idolatry.

Acknowledging the reality of emotions is different from evaluating their health or helpfulness.

For example, to the young woman in scenario 2, you might say, “It sounds like you’re feeling hurt. I’m sorry about that. Can I ask you why her words were so hurtful to you?” This lets her know you’re there for her while opening the door to further discussion that may shed light on the illegitimacy of those feelings—or may reveal that your initial suspicions were off and the friend’s comments were indeed unkind.

2. See feelings as a thermometer rather than a thermostat.

A thermometer tells you what the temperature is; a thermostat directs the temperature. As a counselor friend of mine said, “Emotions are helpful information.”

In the case of the husband in scenario 1, his anger is an important revelation. It’s good to know he feels angry. But the fact of his anger is one thing. What actions will he take in response? If he puts that anger in the driver’s seat, he’s going to make bad decisions that worsen, not improve, his marital problems. He needs to learn to submit his anger to the Lord. You should consider asking him what God asks Jonah: “Do you do well to be angry?” (Jonah 4:9).

More helpful than validating others’ emotions is helping them respond to those emotions and—if necessary—redirect them.

3. Practice situational wisdom.

Proverbs 26:4–5 (CSB) gives apparently contradictory advice: “Don’t answer a fool according to his foolishness or you’ll be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his foolishness or he’ll become wise in his own eyes.” But it’s not a contradiction when we grasp the underlying assumption: Wisdom is situational. We’ll answer a fool differently depending on the situation.

As a counselor friend of mine said, ‘Emotions are helpful information.’

In scenario 3 above, your wisest move might be to give the frustrated single members the hearing they desire—if you know them to be mature, humble people who have been committed to your church and demonstrated submission to Scripture over time.

On the other hand, your wisest move might be to correct them clearly and directly, even at the risk of their departure from the church, if you know this is just another round of immature antics from chronically angry folks known to regularly stir up trouble and division.

Tread Lightly

These steps won’t make everything easy or every decision straightforward. It’s possible to handle a situation with the utmost love, care, and wisdom and still get accused of spiritual abuse and gaslighting. Sadly, in our cultural moment—when helping others “feel cared for and supported” is seen as the highest good—anything short of full validation of feelings can be interpreted as being cruel or abusive.

You might also try to act wisely but misstep. Sanctification and soul care are messy work. But we’re instruments in the hands of the Redeemer, who uses us to extend grace and peace to one another. Let’s seek him in prayer, and lean on his wisdom, as we traverse the sometimes difficult terrain of emotional life.