Happiness, Anger, and Your Liver
- Therefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices; my body also rests securely.
- That’s why my heart celebrates and my mood is joyous; yes, my whole body will rest in safety.
- This is a good life—my heart is glad, my soul is full of joy, and my body is at rest.
Who could want for more? - So my heart rejoices and I am happy; My life is safe.
- Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure.
- Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.
- Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope.
A secure person has healthy emotions - healthy happiness and sadness, joy and anger. Our heart is the seat or inner place of our love and our liver is the seat or inner place of our anger. Healthy, normal people experience love and anger, and because of this, they walk securely.
Having God's protection, living a life of worship towards God, loving your neighbor, declining to live in idolatry, making the Lord your life, receiving and living in your inheritance in contentment, receiving counsel from God even while sleeping, and living in 24-7 intimacy with God. These all lead to or produce the fruit of a secure life, from the inside out, symbolized by a healthy heart and liver.
David says that three aspects of his life are good, and I looked at seven different translations, because the second part, aspect number two, is translated differently, in different translations. He says his heart is good, and something else is good, and that his flesh, body, or life is good. That something else is translated:
- my spirit
- my mood
- my soul
- I
- my tongue
- my whole being
- my glory
The King James has "my glory", as does the NASB and many other older translations. But we simply do not say, "my glory rejoices", today; so translators had to choose other words. It probably tells us that the Hebrew is difficult or obscure here.
I found a note, in the NET Bible notes, that makes the case that this word, and they translate it "I", is synonymous with liver. Again, we do not exclaim, "my liver rejoices", so no English translation says that, but the writers of the NET Bible notes make the exegetical and anthropological case that this is what the original statement meant.
We have to remember that we are in the West, but David and the other authors of the Bible lived in the East. Sometimes people do fear-talk and say, "watch out for those eastern religions", and I imagine they have in mind Hinduism and Buddhism. But Judaism is from the middle-east, and is closer to China and India than to London, New York, or Los Angeles.
Even though Continental Europe is closer than those, it's western, modern ideas of psychology and medicine will not help us with Hebrew as much as looking at Eastern anthropology. And, from Chinese medicine, we find out some things, from the eastern mind, about the liver.
Some of our bodies' organs are connected to our emotions. It is believed that the liver is connected to our anger. How you feel, deal with, or process anger is connected to your liver. When we have a weakened liver, it is more difficult to deal with anger.
Overeaters or compulsive overeaters often eat because something is eating at them, which is often anger or resentment. Alcohol and drugs, including Tylenol, are hard on the liver. Ironically, people take drugs and alcohol to cope with anger, and actually weaken their body's built-in anger processor.
Anger is a secondary emotion or a reaction. Anger is healthy and normal. A robust life includes healthy anger. David might have been such a person: a passionate warrior who had fiery anger that regularly was processed through his inner man or liver. He had a bright light, we could say. He might have been a person who changed the atmosphere in a room or place, just by his presence, which included his passionate, fiery personality.
Anger includes irritability, resentment, and frustration. We get these, but we do not stay in these, but process them; which is the inner role the liver plays in our body's emotional processing system. If we do not process or allow our system to process, or if our system is blocked somehow, and we can not process the anger that comes, then we have a back-log of anger and we become angry easier at smaller annoyances in our lives.
Headaches, dizziness, high blood pressure, stomach, and spleen problems can be the result of anger backed up in your insides. There are actually about 100 conditions that could be connected to your liver's health.
The liver is the blood filter. The liver stores sugar, for energy. The liver works for the growth and repair of the body's tissues.
The liver is in charge of your body's peripheral nervous system. People with dysfunctional livers have difficulty relaxing and with balance. Dysfunction also results in lack of drive, ambition, and creativity; and feelings of anger: frustration and rage for no reason.
The liver and gallbladder work hand-in-hand. If one is unhealthy, it affects the function of the other. A healthy life-style for one is helpful for the functioning of the other.
Most of these things are the negatives of an unhealthy liver. But, in Psalm 16, David says, "my liver is great!" So what are the positives about a healthy liver, that David must have been experiencing enough to say this?
In Chinese medicine, the liver is "the general", or "the chief of staff". The liver is the general in charge of strategy. We are talking about vision, planning, and creativity.
A person with a healthy liver is vibrant in their kindness, benevolence, compassion, and generosity. This reminds me of the fruit of the Spirit. A healthy liver function, according to Chinese medicine, results in the feelings of ease, harmony, and peace.
The macro functional idea of the liver's role is to make you go somewhere, to set you free to be creative, to live going out, up, and forward. "Carpe diem!", with peace, is what your liver wants to say.
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Bibliography
The Liver Doctor: Your Emotions Can Effect The Health of Your Liver
What Are The Seven Emotions?, by Shen Nong
Liver: Wood-energy yin organ
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