The Emotional Fog
A few days ago, I was driving across a ridge (cliffs either side) at midnight, as one does… when low cloud cover passed over the road. I could see a few meters in front of me at best, and now realise why they put road reflectors on poles as well as on the road. It got so bad that I had to get out and look at which way the road was going, else drive off a cliff…
Slightly more recently I’ve been thinking about how emotions can often cloud our thinking as we walk the road of life. In intense emotions, we often lose sight of the bigger picture and solely focus on whatever we’re emotional about. Take anger for example:
Someone does something that makes us angry. Focusing on the problem, we forget about forgiveness, about our own sin, and solely focus on the lust for revenge or justice. And that’s when we stop concentrating on following Jesus, and walk off the road, because of emotional fog.
There’s two things I’d like to say about this. The first is that emotion is real. Someone lets you down… yea it sucks, yea it feels crap, and so it should. Being emotionless is not the answer here. It shows that you’ve got a heart that beats…
But more important than a heart that beats, is a heart that’s set on Truth, set on Jesus. And so my second point is that emotions shouldn’t consume us. What should consume us is God’s love and grace. Lest we show ungrace, where God has shown grace. Lest we harbour hate, where God has harboured love.
I’ve spoken a lot about anger as an example, but if you’d like another one: The weight of guilt or worthlessness can be just as consuming. Lest we forget how much God loves us and what he had to go through to forgive us, because of his great love for us. Lest we forget we’re forgiven…
“and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” - Jesus
Walshy,
Thanks for sharing, with great clarity, and encouraging, with great conviction.
Walshy,
You make a lot of sense here. This certainly works for a lot of the emotions of a human heart and a lot of situations we find ourselves in, clouding our direction.
Having a heart set on Truth stops us, senses where things are going and redirects us. Knowing the truth, as Jesus says, sets us free from the mess we can be heading to.
Good stuff mate!