The “normal” human life isn’t what is marketed to us by the pharmaceutical industry or by the lives we see projected on movie screens, or, frankly, by a lot of Christian sermons and praise songs.

The normal human life is the life of Jesus of Nazareth, who sums up in himself everything it means to be human (Ephesians 1:10). And the life of Christ presented to us in the Gospels is a life of joy, of fellowship, of celebration, but also of loneliness, of profound sadness, of lament, of grief, of anger, of suffering, all without sin.

As the Holy Spirit conforms us to the image of Christ, we don’t become giddy, or, much less, emotionally vacant. Instead, the Bible tells us we “groan” along with the persecuted creation around us (Romans 8:23). We cry out with Jesus himself, experiencing with him often the agony of Gethsemane (Galatians 4:6; Mark 14:36). And, paradoxically, along the way, we join Jesus in joy and peace (Galatians 5:22).

A human emotional life is complicated, and a regenerated human emotional life is complicated too.