Emotions 301

"Emotions are the believer's number one enemy." ... Watchman Nee


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God University has an extremely controversial class called Emotions 301. You can only take this class when you've been in school a few years--the younger students can't handle this one. 

In fact, the older students barely survive this one.

You should hear all the arguing which takes place in that classroom. People stand up at their desks and hotly defend their right to feel miserable--to go wherever their emotions take them. To go up when their emotions are up and down when they are down. To be jerked, yanked and dragged by their feelings any day of the week--that is what many students fight for.

I pitied the Teacher of that class. And when I became a student teacher of that class, I pitied myself.

Following our emotions is like following a treasure map on which the directions and roads keep changing. The treasure remains in the same place, but the lines to it move around constantly.

Emotions are like the lights of sunrise. You know, when you run to get your camera to take a picture of the pink sunrise, but by the time you return, the sun has gone orange. And as the light in the sky keeps changing moment by moment throughout the day, so do our emotions change.

Our spouse or a friend says something stupid to us, so Life turns grey.
They tell us something wonderful, so Life gleams.

We accomplish our work so we feel terrific about ourselves.
We don't accomplish our work so we feel horrible about ourselves.

Our friends keep in contact with us, so we love them and Life is great.
Our friends neglect us, so we resent them and Life is sad.

Our circumstances are going well so we feel happy and healthy.
Our circumstances are going all wrong so we feel upset and sick.

In Emotions 301 we learned that there is something more sure, more unchanging, more steady than our emotions. And that is the Spirit of God. He so wants to put our feet on steady ground, to lead us from strength to strength and from glory to glory.

He longs to make us into examples of someone held up by His steady hand. Someone who recognizes why emotions were created in the first place--so that we can express the very emotions of God in any situation, illustrate how we feel inside, we, and the spirit inside which God made alive.

And that's what I'm aiming for, to express joy when God does. To show anger when God does. To allow only a godly discontent in my spirit to move me--not my own gotta-do-something-different discontent.

To recognize the difference between my emotions and God's and the difference between my soul and my spirit.

But most of all-- to be led by His Spirit. He who is like a map on which the roads change not--but always lead to Heaven and "Well done..."


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Emotions 301 is a course which lasts for years and years--it's impossible for me to sum it all up in a simple blog post. So please keep in mind I've left so much unsaid.



"For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." ... Hebrews 4:12


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