Admit it. Most of us are emotional beings. No, that's not what I mean to say. We are emotionally-driven. We operate on feelings. We decide based on feelings. We think based on feelings. And ... that makes no sense. The dictionary says emotions are "a conscious mental reaction subjectively experienced as strong feeling." So why do these reactions to experiences rule? Shouldn't the mind rule? And, yet, it happens all the time. We're told to "follow your heart" rather than "what do you think?" I've heard "I feel" replace "I think" at an extremely fast rate. (I heard a PhD explain, "I feel like this experiment should work this way." Really? You feel like it? How about "think"?)
It seems as if we're in a culture that values feelings over content. Our opinions are formed from feelings. Our plans are built on feelings. Our political views are propped up by feelings. We think that worship with feelings is superior to sacrificial worship. Romance is superior to self-sacrificial love. We recommend choosing your future based on your emotions rather than your mind. We choose spouses with feelings. (What ever happened to "I think"?) We too often let our hearts rule when our minds and wills ought to.
The greatest commandment tells us to love God with everything we are ... including specifically your mind (Matt 22:37). We are commanded to be transformed by the renewing of the mind (Rom 12:2). Emotions, in fact, are a reflection of what our minds are doing with the events and circumstances around us. Shouldn't we be spending more time thinking better in order to be more obedient and even to feel better? Emotions are human and even God-given. I just fear we give them too much power.
1 comment:
I sometimes wonder if our complaints about today are of a false idea of what the "halcyon" days of yore were like. Really, what we know of how people thought in the olden days is through the writings of the thinkers, but does that mean the majority of people around them were also thinkers and not feelers? We do need to be better about aligning our feelings with reality, but is this truly a recent phenomenon, or did it just feel like one?
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