“I am weak, but Thou art strong,” starts my life’s theme song. Jesus keeps me from wrong not my own ability, knowledge, strength, or even my own will. I am weak. He is strong. But can I, or will I, be satisfied as long as I walk close to Him?
Jesus called His disciples to Himself and told them to go. But the first words were not “go”, but rather, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” It was a statement of fact. It is still true. He has the authority over me, and anything I choose besides Him is rebellion. It sounds crazy, but that includes myself, my family, my job, or anything else in my sphere of experience.
All authority has been given to Him, so nothing else is supposed to have authority in my life. But stuff does. I feel emotions, and as a guy, I have little or no idea what to do with them, or even what they are. I have to consciously inventory my emotions before they become manageable. How sad is that? (which is an emotion by the way)
But I have also found that there are elements to me that are not emotion, but something else. I have physiological problems, and one of them includes depression. I thought depression was emotional, but for me, it’s chemically driven. Not driven by chemicals I take, but those loose in my brain. An excessive amount of neurotransmissions clutters my mind, but also drives my emotional state down. Those aren’t thoughts, at least not conscious ones. I’m not sure what they are, but they aren’t good. So, I take a medication for them. I don’t think it’s able to keep up though.
Right now, I am in depression, emotionally, and probably physiologically. I feel it, but can’t tie it to normal daily life. There are things in my life out of my control: I have a niece and her husband who are experiencing a severe trial of their faith. My wife’s aunt is dying. These things play at my mind, seeping into and through my thoughts, and I am sad. For me, these things are dangers I must be aware of and deal with. I can’t afford to ignore the signs. I must weep, whether it’s manly or not. I must grieve and that is a process not just one feeling. I must feel these emotions or they will destroy me. (that sounds dramatic doesn’t it?)
I don’t mean that I will die from them, I mean that all that my Master has done in my life lately will become undone. I’d have to start over, which is not the same as being destroyed, so I was being overly dramatic. I can start over, or rather, my Master begin again with me. But this time in my life is no surprise to my Master, he engineered the setting I would experience it in. He engineered the timing, the resources available to my family, and the new found devotion to Him. I am living now more than I have in a long time. And so, now I must feel as I have never felt, experiencing emotions to a degree I have avoided my entire life.
Experiencing emotions is not being ruled by them, but rather it is an immersive experience. It is when I don’t experience them intentionally that I am ruled by them unintentionally; at least for me anyway. But, since I haven’t a lot of practice at this, I fumble around with it. I don’t know how to do it really, I just try to figure it out. I have a busy morning, but a free afternoon. And now I have an important task.
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