I’m always amazed by people
who seemingly just let things roll off their back. My personality is to take
things and people more seriously, particularly in areas of a spiritual nature. I
can’t help but take my own spiritual well-being seriously, but I’d like to
learn to lighten up when it comes to other people’s situations. For instance, when
people thumb their nose at the idea of sin, evil and salvation I’d like to be nonchalant
and say, “Oh well.” Or better yet, laugh at them, “The wicked plot against the
righteous and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at
the wicked, for he knows their day is coming” (Psalm 37:12-13 NIV).
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Emotions are like words. They convey a piece of what you mean about something. But they don’t convey it all. The descriptions, definitions, and comparisons of the intellect articulate the meaning of your perceptions. Emotions put the meaning into an attitudinal position relative to the elements of your situation. The Lord’s being an element of every situation opens an endless resource of meaning for your mind to further grasp and further attitudes for your emotions to convey.
-----Some of those meanings and attitudes can seem esoteric and even disjointed. But God’s wisdom walks a different direction than does the world’s, so they're not. Whereas the boundaries of our senses confine our minds to small places (maybe you can see for miles on a clear day, but you won’t see that blue jay on Grand Mesa from your porch in Montrose. You won’t hear him either. Or smell him, thank God.) So also every situation rolls across our consciousness bounded by its allotted time. Does it really matter how long a situation in this world will last when the entire time of this world itself won’t even amount to a flash in the pan of eternity? To which spell of time would you rather emotionally attach?
-----Ideas which could not well up from goings on in the world alone were given to us through the Holy Spirit about places and times and realities beyond this small box confining us. May I please offer that they are more real than our confining box? Our having been freed from the error (sin) of this box allows us to express those attitudes emotionally. Maybe by their own logic our minds do not grasp that our child’s having been run over in the street means God is working good again. They reason only misery from such a tragedy. But reason is the smaller portion of the mental processes God made for the mind to use. Revelation is also a portion of those processes. And the Holy Bible is just that -revelation.
-----So when a Romans 8:28 says even a child’s death works good for us since we love the Lord, then by golly, it does work good. Its reality doesn’t stand to reason; its reality stands by revelation. That our senses are confined to very tiny situations does not mean those situations have short strings. Their strings tie into other situations across space, time, and even physical/spiritual universes weaving a net of meaning. Making that net of His meaning means that although every little thing may not be fine, every little thing works good for someone loving the Lord through some connection beyond reason. And that is also something we can hang emotion upon.
-----When situations are carefully sorted and analyzed by both reason and revelation into terms of this little box and God’s infinite eternity, too, emotions become available to you like an orchestra’s available to its director. It’s just a matter of mentally addressing all of reality, reasoned reality as certainly well as revealed reality. Then one can carry lightheartedness through times of doom without being detached, disjointed, or otherwise deranged. Moreover, since perception does somewhat explore by emotional lighting, the brightness of joyful emotions can illuminate otherwise unnoticeable solutions otherwise missed in the darkness of despair. It’s a wisdom thing.
-----Now consider why Paul bids us to receive everything with thanksgiving, never carping about anything, while addressing the Lord continually in prayer. It’s a perception thing -perception of revelation describing observation. Then, consider the reality of the Psalm, “I have laid up thy word in my heart, that I might not sin against thee,” (Psalm 119:11) and ponder which reality is the better hitching post for emotions.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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