To all the soft-hearted people reading this post, have you ever cried watching a movie? Is it hard for your feelings to get engaged when you think about sad or hard circumstances? Are you purely intellectual having bought into the lie that emotions are too dangerous?
I was a teenager during the first Star Trek generation. Still impressionable, it became my desire to be like Spock and not allow my emotions to have any influence upon me. I wanted to be defined by logic.
Born an Italian and raised to be self-centered, much like the rest of my culture, living without emotions is not practically possible. When a person is driven by self-interest, in such a condition, most emotions are destructive.
Now in my later years, a Christian for fifty-three years; frequently, my emotions move me toward the self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ. Upon repentance and saving faith, the depth of my rebellion and pride toward God became very clear. In the course of my life and the transforming work of God, I find myself moved to tears by a sincere love of one person toward another.
A loved one is lost reading a book; maybe in a movie, a lost one is found. At some point, the tears begin as I consider the situation, but quickly thoughts of Christ replace the story before me. Jesus's sufferings and the cost of loving lost sinners to honor God the Father overrule the initial cause of my tears.
"You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13). When God uses the phrase, 'With all your heart," He does not mean every particle of a person's being but the entirety of the heart, which includes the mind (intellect), the emotions (joy, anger, love, fear, etc.), and will (the place we make choices).
Seek God with all your heart, including your emotions, and you will find Him. Allow your heart to be controlled by Him, and you can feel without fear. "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." (1 John 4:18) Perfect love cast out doubt, so trust that God loves you perfectly.
Comments