(REPOST) Here's another one Sascha and I wrote together. She's WAY smart.
Recently, we were looking for a new house. My parents graciously decided to watch the kids while we did so. So my husband and I set out to see some houses. After finding the one we thought would be it, we went home and loaded up the family. My dad was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and my husband was in the back with my mother and the kids. We turned down a side street where there was some construction and a lane was blocked off. The car next to us did not see us as he veered over. We tried to get out of the way, only to enter into oncoming traffic. The white truck barreled toward us and I looked at my dad's face. This gentle man, always in control, was afraid. I knew that if he was afraid, I should be afraid. At the last second, the white truck swerved and missed us by inches as we crested a hill. It was at the top of the hill that I was certain we would be meeting Jesus in person soon. There at the top of the hill was another truck who was behind the first. Everything seemed to go into slow motion. I thought about my husband in the back. I was relieved that our whole family would meet Jesus together. Just as the truck was about to hit us, I woke up. All of it had been a dream.
It was so vivid and real. I was certain that I would see my LORD in heaven in the next moment. When I awoke, my heart was pounding and my forehead sweaty. Everyone was safe in their beds. I was safe in my home. Yet my heart still raced and my head still spun. In that moment was I going to die? No. Did it feel like it? Yes. Even when I woke up, it took a few moments to realize there were no pearly gates around. It took even longer for my heart to calm down and my eyes to close again.
When we allow our feelings to control and dictate our every move, we live in an alternative reality. Rather than look at the truth and seek the truth, we search our feelings and treat them as the standard for which we should live our lives. The problem is that our feelings were created to inform our decisions, not control them. In extreme cases, this can lead to debilitating lifestyles. You "feel" as if everyone's after you. You "feel" like you're going to die in public places. You "feel" like you've got cancer without ever seeing a doctor. Granted these phobias are serious issues that need not be minimized. They are issues where deceptive feelings have gotten out of control. What about everyday struggles, though? You "feel" fat so you don't eat. You "feel" depressed so you eat too much. You "feel" like your boss is going to shoot down your idea, so you don't even share it. You "feel" like you're marriage is fine, so you avoid hard talks. You "feel" like you love that person, so you leave your family. Feelings are deceptive little suckers. Jeremiah puts it this way.
"The heart is deceptive above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" - Jeremiah 17:9
This little sentence comes in the middle of Jeremiah conveying the often heard message of idolatry from God to His people. It's not God's statement, but Jeremiah's. It's as if Jeremiah is trying to justify why people turn from God and to the stuff He made as functional saviors. They have essentially set their feelings in stone as truth. Their hearts had deceived them and their feelings had become god.
"I, the LORD, search the heart and examine the mind..." Jeremiah 17:10a
God knows. He knows our hearts. He knows they are apt to believe the LIE. He knows that sin is engraved on the tablets of our hearts. He knows that unless there is a radical transformation, we will let our wicked hearts guide us to eternal destruction...that we would let our feelings lead us straight to an ineffective Christian life at best, or straight to hell at worst.
Praise God that we are not slaves to our emotions. Praise God that He has made a way for our hearts to change. He has "removed our heart of stone, and given us a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26) God has put His very Spirit inside of us so that we are no longer slaves to sin, no longer slaves to THE problem, but now free to live according to the Truth. We don't have to live in sin. We don't have to bow to every emotion that comes across our minds.
This doesn't mean that we ignore our emotions altogether. Our emotions inform our lives. We are created by an emotional God. He put those in us. We feel gratitude when we receive a gift. We feel sadness when we lose a loved one. We feel happy when a puppy licks our face. ( or allergies) The problem comes when that sadness paralyzes our life, or that happiness drives us to buy all the puppies in the world.
Scripture points out the logical end to letting your feelings and emotions CONTROL rather than INFORM. Romans 1:21-25
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
This tells us that when we ignore the Truth,even when it's as plain as the nose on our face, God will eventually let us keep believing the lie that leads to destruction. But Jesus tells us in John 3:17 that he didn't come to condemn, but to save. Later in John chapter 10, Jesus tells us that he came to give us life...abundant, full, satisfying life based on the Truth, who is Christ. We are saved and rescued from the control of anything that is NOT God. We are saved into a relationship with the One who created our emotions and wants to use them for His glory, not see them cripple or paralyze our lives.
Let your emotions inform your life, not control it. Let your life be lived in line with the Truth of who God is and who He says you are.
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