Emotions

I am an introspective person.  I have to ponder things.  Sometimes they are frivolous.  Sometimes they are big mysteries of life.  Today is one from the second camp.  I’ve been thinking about emotions and how they affect how we act and react.  Mostly, this is due to recent situations in my life.  I didn’t react in the best way possible.  Consequently, there were some dark clouds obscuring the sunshine in my life.  After some discussion about the issues, I felt better and the clouds departed.  I now realize it was my emotions.

Why do we have emotions?  What part of God’s creative process was the deciding factor in throwing that in the mixing pot?  While I realize He doesn’t want us automatically and blindly doing His bidding, what purpose do emotions serve?  Emotions or feelings can cause us to do things we may not do otherwise.  Perhaps I should add hormones to this group since hormones can affect our emotions.  As I consider all of this, I realize I have to work through it all because of the low I experienced. 

I won’t say emotions are bad.  On the contrary, without emotions or feelings we would never have mountaintop experiences.  It just stinks that there are valleys.  I understand there is joy in the whole journey and we have to take the good with the bad.  Nevertheless, when I look at the whole of what God has done for mankind and what I have learned recently, I believe the main reason for emotions is to bring glory to God. 

I continue to learn that man was created to bring glory to the Creator.  We cannot only live for the highs and believe we have God’s favor when things are good.  God is still worthy to be praised and worshipped when we are in the valley.  I am beginning to understand that the honor we give to the Lord when we trust while in the valley is worth more, in God’s economy, than our faith when on the mountaintop. 

When I woke up today before work, the chorus from the hymn Trust and Obey was going through my mind.  “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.”  It goes back to what I said in my writing about prayer.  God wants us to continue knocking.  We are to pound on the door until we get an answer.  He wants to know if we are serious about our relationship with Him.  The valleys, as in my recent situation, are sometimes only our emotions or our reaction to a situation.  God is still God and He is still in control.  He wants to know if we are still serious about our relationship.  He wants to know if we will trust and obey anyway.