Today’s chapter starts with a shot over the bow of our life with a profound truth that animates the day in which we live.
“In modern times, feelings exercise almost total mastery over the individual. When people must decide what they want to do, feelings are all they have to go on… people are overwhelmed with decisions and can make those decisions only on the basis of feelings. As a result, people cannot distinguish between their feelings and their will, they confuse feelings with reasons.”
This always reminds me of the Pirates of the Caribbean” movies. In the movie there is a compass by which you direct your life. The traditional view of a compass that directs your life is a moral compass. A moral compass is something that comes from outside of you, an objective source. In the case of religion, the idea that God sets that objective moral compass is the norm. But our movies reflect our current days thinking so the compass in these movies is driven by whatever your heart desires. But what if your heart is selfish and desires something at the expense of a real moral value? When does your dream of world domination give you the right to exterminate 6 million jews for no cause? An objective moral compass has more value than everyone following their feelings.
The chapter goes on to talk about the traumatic events of our life that foster strong feelings inside of us. Betrayal, rejection, abuse, etc. These events linger in the corners of our lives and cultivate painful feelings from deep in our soul. For the ways in which people simply try to deny or bury these feelings, they always end up coming out sideways in our life, wreaking havoc and ironically recreating the same type of problem we are always trying to avoid.
The goal here is to move into exchanging destructive patterns with the message that God says about us that creates constructive patterns on which to build a life. To move toward faith, hope, love, joy and peace and to move away from what has stolen those from us. As was said in a previous chapter our first freedom is where I choose to put my mind. The invitation to set our mind on things above isn’t simply some rule to follow, but an invitation to freedom and life that God offers to us.
What are some feelings that plague you? What is the Godly value you could choose to set your mind on that would alter that? How could a redeemed vision of God alter our unredeemed version of feelings? What feelings is a redeemed heart blessed with?
Truth, Grace, and Time 