God gave us emotions to express our
self in words full of feeling and meaning. God also has emotions and expresses
them throughout His Word.
There are no bad emotions. The Bible
even tells us it is acceptable to feel anger; it simply cautions us not to
allow anger to push us into sin (Ephesians 4:26).
Jesus was angry at the abuse of His
Father's Temple by the money changers. He allowed the anger to spur His
actions, but He did not act in anger. He was determined and purposeful when He
cleansed the temple (Matthew 21:12-17).
Human anger is often like a volcano,
which scars the earth with lava welts. Human anger also erupts in a flash and
leaves behind huge scars in the hearts of the recipients of that anger.
We should use anger as a red flag to
alert us that our body or soul is wounded. Then we can express the feelings of
woundedness rather than the emotion of anger.
God gave us physical feelings to bring
us pleasure and to alert us of pain and any type of sensitivity. Our emotional
feelings function in the same way.
They protect us from danger and injury
and bring us joy. Our feelings alert us to what is happening in our spirit,
body and soul. We can learn to discern and respond to these indicators.
We even have feelings of
intuition, which help to keep us out of trouble. If we ignore our feelings, we
will end up in trouble physically, mentally and emotionally.
This is why we need to make a
searching inventory of our body, soul and spirit on a daily basis. We analyze
the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual transactions going on within us.
This enables us to discern our needs
and respond to them, to ask for help from our family and friends, and to seek
God's will for us each moment of our day.
Prayer:
Father God, help us not to disguise or
suppress our feelings, or to condemn our self for them. Remind us to use them
as You intended: to protect us, to help us to enjoy life and to build more
intimate relationships with You and with one another.
Teach us not to abuse our feelings by
lashing out at others or by allowing our negative feelings to cripple us with
bitterness or unforgiveness. Instead, we can acknowledge to You and to others
how we honestly feel and what we need done to feel better.
Thought for the Day:
People who cannot honestly but kindly
express their mental, physical and emotional feelings, or who are too afraid to
even acknowledge their feelings, are the real fatalities in this world.
