It
takes all kinds of personalities to make a well-rounded world. God joins our
life with others who have weaknesses who need our strengths, and who have
strengths that will aid us in overcoming our weaknesses.
If someone has a different philosophy about life
or a differing viewpoint, we believe that our way is better and their way is
wrong. We attempt to change others to our way of thinking and feeling, and feel angry when they
resist our efforts.
Intellectuals
often disdain emotional people, because they cannot relate to these emotions.
Others feel these emotion too, but have too much pride to admit to it, since
they see emotions as a weakness.
Intellectuals
enjoy the realm of thinking, ideas, analysis, a sound mind, etc. Emotions are
too messy and demanding for them. They resent what they interpret as an attempt
to control them, rather than to see the emotional display as a cry for help.
Idea
people do not consider an emotional person's needs as valid and legitimate.
They cannot validate the emotional person's requests, because they usually see no value in them, are irritated by them and
feel trapped and restricted by them.
Thinkers
build walls around their heart and resist the emotions expressed by intimate
friends and family members. They get the feeling of being overwhelmed and even
wounded by the intensity of any emotional outburst.
What
intellectuals do not realize is that they are just as guilty of trying to control life through analysis, as
emotional people are to use their passions to feel safe in life.
A
great balance between the two starts when we respect each other and both use
emotive insight and intelligent thought
processes to
direct our conversations, life choices and behavior. We start to see value and balance in wisely using both our mind and emotions.
Prayer:
Father
God, You created our emotions and You ordained that emotional people will often take liberty in
using words and expressing emotions. As passionate people, they get angry as
easily as they laugh and bubble over with enthusiasm about life. They pray with
sentiment, their compassion is based on their life experiences and empathy for
others, and they deeply feel other people's needs.
You
created thinkers because we need intellectual
people in the world too. Yet, it is difficult for an intellectual to stop
hiding behind their need for orderliness and literal facts. They do not want to
admit their needs and vulnerability, or even that they feel emotional at all, because they fear being hurt more than
they already are. You sent Jesus to break down the walls of separation between intellectual and emotional
people,
because He was both. Due to His sacrifice, we are all allowed to enter Your
Kingdom as co-heirs with Christ.
Thought
for the Day:
God
puts opposites together to balance us out, and to bring
harmony to our life and to the world. This helps us to grow mentally,
emotionally and spiritually as we learn to appreciate
one another rather than to insist that one viewpoint is right and the other is
wrong.
