Emotions. We all have them. Some of us show them more than others. Some of us keep them bottled up, but they are still there. There are certain things in life that grab our emotions and capture them tightly. Situations can take hold of our emotions. The tragedy in Haiti has left my heart saddened by all of those who have lost their lives, and yet I am hopeful as well due to the outpouring of help that is coming from across the globe. Stories can leave us emotional as well. I am not afraid to admit I still get a little misty eyed when I see Samuel L. Jackson run out of the courtroom and hug his daughter at the end of the film A Time to Kill. But most of the time after my emotions take hold, I go back to my normal way of life, my normal way of feeling. I turn off the TV news, or I walk out of the movie theater.
Some people say that love is an emotion. I happen to believe that love is something more than just an emotion. True love, like the kind God has for His children and what His children are supposed to have for Him, is not something that is meant to be strong and fervent one minute and back to lukewarm and “normal” the next. If that was the case, then love is something fickle. And since the Creator defines what love is (because He is love), then it can’t be fickle. It has to be something constant. Something that doesn’t fade in and fade out; a commitment of sorts.
I confess that there have been many times in my life where my devotion to God is this fickle thing that I call love. I want to serve Him and please Him one minute, and then the next day my passion has died down a little. You ever felt like that? You ever heard some sermon that just made your heart burn with a desire for God and then slowly that burning fire died down? I think I have had many of those moments. I think those kind of moments are what going to church camp as a teen is all about.
I believe that God wants more than that from us. I am reminded of what Jesus taught about the benefits of building your house on a rock versus building your house on sand. A rock is something permanent. It’s strong and stable. Sand is shifty. It can be hard to keep your footing when you are in the sand. My love and devotion needs to be more like a rock and less like the sand. My faith needs to be more of a commitment and less of an emotion. My faith needs to be something that just is and not something that is on fire one minute and then quickly washed away. An unstable love is not really a love at all. My desire is to be completely captivated by my God. Not just on certain days of the week or certain times when I am going through difficulties. It’s so easy for me to run to God when times are tough. But I want to be close to God at all times; in the good and the bad. That’s what being in a relationship with God is all about. My desire is to have a love for Him that is not based in emotion but in commitment, because He committed to me before I even knew Him. And I pray the same for you as well because He has committed Himself to all of His children.
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