Saturday, July 16, 2011

They say it's just a feeling,
but what is 'just a feeling'? 
I mean, we put so much stock into the intellectual things,
and say we can't get carried away by our emotions and our feelings,
but why is our intellect always so much more reliable than our emotions?
People have wrong ideas all the time, and it's not always because they got carried away by their emotions. Oftentimes the ones who are most concerned about being theologically and intellectually correct are the most off target. Michael Card says, "It's not always about being right." And that scares some people. But what I think he means and I think is so true is that we tend to get so caught up in being perfectly correct in our doctrines and intellectual ideas that we forget the passion and the emotion that we are commanded to have.

And why is it ok to be worried about someone because he doesn't have all his theology and little points of doctrine specifically right but we don't pray for people to have more passion, and more emotion when it comes to the pure amazingness of our Jesus?

Isn't the first requirement to love the Lord our God with all our heartMind comes second, remember? 

But what I really wanted to say is that it wears me thin when people try to explain the fact that just hearing a song that flows so deep into me I can feel it all through me is 'just a feeling'. Yeah, it's a feeling. But why can't grace be a feeling? Why can't this feeling that seeps through my entire soul be grace, be real? Why don't we count those feelings as so important? 

I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful with our feelings. All I'm saying is that we should pay more attention to them. And maybe we should be more careful with our intellectual thoughts and ideas. Because those could be taking you down as wrong a path as getting carried away by feelings could. 

Think about it.

I started this post because I'm feeling grace right now. I'm listening to Outrageous Grace. I've had a tiring, frustrating night, full of lots of rotten feelings and getting impatient and frustrated for no logical reason. And now I feel peaceful and content for no logical reason. There is not an intellectual explanation for the grace I feel right now. There doesn't have to be. It's just outrageous. Just outrageous grace. And frankly, more often than not, that's a feeling. Just a feeling. Just another incredible feeling. 

So feel the grace, and don't try to explain it away. Don't ruin the moment of feeling and emotion by giving it a practical explanation. Okay? Just don't. Just feel the outrageous grace. It's amazing, and that's all there is to it. 

3 comments:

  1. To add to your comment about the mind coming after heart. Mind wasn't even in the original version (in Deuteronomy). That was added in the version quoted in the New Testament with all the Greek philosophical influence. That doesn't mean it's less inspired, but it wasn't even in the first version.

    This how I feel a lot of the time. When people explain things too much they often lose sight of the emotional effect. Explaining should be done mostly to enhance the emotional effect, and very sparingly when it doesn't.

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  2. The mind is to feed the heart the truth about the God it is to love. Good post; it especially so for me, as I find it easy to sound right, and to know my doctrine, and to leave off praying in private. Thank you.

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  3. Seth: Right. you can't have heart without mind, and vice versa. Which is why there are people on both ends of the spectrum who are wrong. It's a fine line, and it will never be perfectly reached by any of us until heaven. But I often wish that people who stress the importance of having both, seem to have so little emotion.
    you're welcome. :)
    and thank you, Isaiah, for agreeing with me. :)

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