Sense and Sensibility
Ponder: Reason and Feelings
Scripture: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV).
Do you remember Mr. Spock, the half-human, half-Vulcan character on the old Star Trek program? Spock lacked emotions (feelings). Everything he thought or did supposedly sprang from pure logic, unaffected by grief, joy, anger, or affection. To him, feelings were a sign of weakness; Vulcans had “evolved” beyond them!
Both logic and emotions get a bad rap, especially in spiritual matters. Let us realize that the two are not mutually exclusive! We need not reject one to choose the other. No one’s logic was more sound than that of Jesus (just ask the Pharisees He debated)! Yet His tears, tenderness, joy, and fury shine forth to complete the picture.
Nowadays, emotions rule the day. Even our vocabulary shows it. We routinely ask, “How do you feel” about a certain matter, rather than “What do you think” about it. Back in 1977, Debbie Boone’s hit song, “You Light Up My Life,” closed with the observation, “It can’t be wrong when it feels so right.” This erroneous sentiment has only increased over the last 36 years.
While emotions are God-given, they are not the standard for determining right and wrong. The world says, “Get in touch with your feelings. Look within yourself!” To the contrary, God’s word says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). Truth, then, is determined by God through His word, not by my feelings one way or the other.
I’m glad we’re not like Mr. Spock! God has emotions; being made in His image, we have them, too. God’s emotions, however, do not rule over His reason. To the contrary, His feelings result from His reasoning with the facts. “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isaiah 1:18). God didn’t say, “Let us get in touch with our feelings together.”
Let us reason carefully and correctly with God’s word. Believing and obeying it will result in the most wonderful feelings we have ever experienced!