Feelings Driven

Proverbs 19:2 Desire without knowledge is not good— how much more will hasty feet miss the way!

Sometimes in life our feelings get the best of us. We follow them and they lead us astray. We get caught up in the moment and before we realize it, we have done something we didn’t expect. And we have all been there at some moment in our lives.

So why did the LORD give us something, like emotions, that can so mislead us if we aren’t careful? Wouldn’t we be better off without these pesky things! Shouldn’t we just sit down and talk things out like rational people?

You might have heard things like this, or maybe you have said them yourself. It almost sounds like we put thinking and feeling at the opposite ends of the same pole. If you are feeling then you can’t be thinking, and if you are thinking you can’t be feeling.

There is a place for both thinking and feeling in our decisions. The danger is when feeling takes over and runs the show. We all know people who have just let their feelings run wild. They give full throttle to their emotions, and the fuel that is generated propels them down the highway of life unhindered by the laws of physics and traffic laws.

There was a news article this week about two young boys, preteens, who got into their grandmother’s vehicle and went for a drive. Tragically they crashed and died. Their desire for something led them to try to do something they clearly didn’t have the skill to accomplish. Video games are not the same as real life!

The key is that desire gets tempered by knowledge. It is not that emotions don’t have any say in decisions, that facts take over, but that feelings alone can’t be allowed to make decisions. There is a role for both, one is the main character and the other is the supporting role.

Knowledge also needs to listen to desire. Few things in life of significance technological would have been accomplished if someone didn’t take a chance. With the recent launch of two Americans into space again from US soil highlights knowledge and desire working together. If fear of death was allowed to rule, no one would have gone to space.

When we make decisions we need to allow facts to inform our emotions and emotions inform facts. Both are necessary and vital to productive human life. But emotions need to be in the supportive role, not the lead.

Emotions have a tendency to rise and fall in an instant. If we just react, allowing our emotions to determine our actions apart from our thinking and reasoning, we will often step into a mine field.

I remember when I was growing up that I was taught to count to ten before answering if I was upset. Pretty good advice. It gave my thinking time to catch up and temper my temper. My reaction was cooled by giving my feelings a moment to connect with my thinking, and I am a better person because I didn’t immediately follow my emotions.

So today, slow down. Very few of our decisions need to be made RIGHT NOW! Most can wait enough time to allow our thinking to get involved with the course of action. We might still act, but will probably act in a way that reflects to a greater degree the character of Christ.