Feelings
The one thing I needed to do throughout all of this leaving the youth group stuff was to assure myself I was going to follow Jesus first.
That’s something I feel very strongly about. I hate it when people follow me instead of Jesus and claim to be Christian. I hate it when Christians follow another person, like a pastor, instead of Jesus.
Maybe I was losing my grip on what was most important to me, maybe that’s why I fled everything that was good except my Messiah. I left my girlfriend, many of my friends, and my Shepard. I did it so I would know who I follow in the deepest parts of my heart, and I find each and everyday new ways I should be following Jesus instead of myself. Sometimes I can treat my grandparents selfishly and walk allover them, sometimes I am compelled to brag for no reason, and sometimes I fill my boredom with unnecessary and empty forms of entertainment, when I could be reading the Bible, working, doing something fun that isn’t mental idle or talking to a friend.
I believe in rest, but I don’t think that all of my spare time should be spent watching “Scrubs”. Sometimes when things get chaotic, we look for distractions or escape rather then assurance or solution. There is nothing wrong with ignoring some problems for a while. But my mentality has never really been “at some point I should solve this”, it’s a little more like “if I catch 30 pokemon before dinner I won’t have to clean my room”.
Some say idle hands are the tools of the devil. I’m not sure I really buy that to be entirely literal. I do buy that being creative is good for the soul, that spending an honest amount of time with God is very good, keeping your life organized is needed to stay disciplined, “staying in the storm” brings triumph, and that one of the most godly things you can do is create. After you’re done with all of that, I don’t see idle-ism as a threat to your spirituality.
The people who do simply miss the significance of rest and even patience.
Our emotions concerning heart aches, decisions, stress and other things are set in cycles for our brain to process. Things like “the first sign is denial” is a well observed norm for accepting ones death or alcoholism, but many of these trains of thought lead you to the acceptance of a resolution or fact. In decision making you go through cycles like this as well, I believe. Though it may not be predictable the same way, taking time away from something can make your dilemma clearer to you. Our emotions can make a lot of our decisions for us because we may skip the most important step in the process.
People might spend a few hours writing a letter, and even dwell on it for a good 24 hours and still miss an important part of their own method- the waiting.
I don’t know about everyone, but I know most people including myself can take their whole perspective straight out of a single emotion, even happiness or a close feeling you have with God can cloud your perspective. Even if you sit down and process a decision logically, your initial emotions can fool you and you can become susceptible to utter blunders that completely self created.
Following me so far? Cool.
There are however, choices we make that pretty much only deal with emotion. Maybe it’s to kiss your girl/boyfriend on the cheek, or to laugh. I would leave all that up to the moment personally. But that doesn’t really distribute properly, huh? I mean, if you have the urge to yell or shout at someone, do you follow through? Not always. But that’s a decision we make that is still embedded in emotion. You can trick yourself with grief not to yell when you’re angry, or with mercy (which I believe is in fact an emotion).
So what’s important to you? Making the right decision? Sure, but I always think that’s what I’m doing when I’m really indulging myself with the little decisions I make. In this way we tend to follow ourselves instead of Jesus.
There’s really only two ways out of this one.
A) Consciously rely on ourselves to make the decision on the spot. This is a pretty pure form of legalism considering it can be seen as an even more sophisticated form of self idolatry. It also starts a pattern of dealing with our emotions that falls apart quickly and lead us all the way back to same problem.
B) Ask Jesus to change the desires of our hearts daily.
What I see happening a lot lately is a complete back fire of emotional discernment.
Many pastors will argue that because our hearts create hurtful desires, our hearts must be inherently rooted in evil. The verses they commonly use never go to that level with me. I suppose it’s because that assumption nearly alleviates and contradicts the Bible’s claim that we can have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
Allow me to elaborate.
When we “relate” to something it is a reaction. If we can react to God in a positive way then our hearts must create good desires.
Another thing (and this is fallacy ridden everyone), is that the Bible is a book of Hope and Love. If all our hearts desires are evil (which by the way is never stated in the Bible, the Bible does state that out of our hearts come wickedness but that is not an exclusive statement- it is only considered exclusive by people who beg the question) then that is easily the most hopeless and loveless thing I’ve ever heard.
So because of the assumption that All of our Desires, unless they are changed by God quite directly, Pastors and Preachers around the world have gained a great power- the power to control people. By bringing them a radical ‘realization’ that all they are capable of is evil without God the pastors have just received every Christian with any conviction in all of the goyum as an early birthday present. Now, tell them what God does approve of Mr. Pastor. Mhm, that’s right. He says that God will challenge you with his commands and you will need to make sacrifices (which is quite true). But guess how people take that? They will go to a significantly lazier ideology. “Believe what the Pastor says always even when it is repulsive” because, I mean after all, the desire not to follow the words of a spiritual authority could only come from the wicked heart of a human.
Do you sense the sarcasm?
This doctrine is just another way to control you and I.
We need to be careful and thoughtful of the desires we have. We aren’t trustworthy because our thoughts and emotions are so jumbled up with sin (a very integral part of our lives sadly), but do not let that fool you into thinking that only bad can come of you without the direct interference of God. God gave you a large amount of something called “Common Grace” which was a subject in the old debates for centuries. American Fundamentalism rejects this idea, even though much of their theology comes from the same set of debates. A defense of this is commonly “Well, God’s goodness is much better then the common Goodness of mankind” in which they contradict themselves.
We were created in God’s image. You know what I think that means? I don’t think it means we look like God physically. I think it means that our emotions are mirrors of God’s. That’s the only thing I ever found remotely similar between God and Wo/Mankind. And you know what I think that means? I think that means our emotions are not ever evil. Our actions are, our thoughts are, but I compel you to never get down on yourself for feeling a certain way. Fill your mind with prayer and wisdom instead, and know that it’s what you do that can matter the most.
posted by Drew @ 1:03 PM
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