I was thinking about our feelings as a caboose after yesterday's post, and it's a nice picture: Casually drifting down the train track, following the engine like a good little caboose should. But then I pictured my ol' Iquana, Chianna. Her tail, it didn't always JUST follow.
A good portion of the time it did. It helped her balance as she climbed around. Helped her steer a little when she swam. But when she got angry or scared, that tail came around and snapped you like a bull whip. Made me think of all the times my feelings have gotten heated and snapped up and lashed out at someone or something. Not at all like a good little caboose following down the tracks!
My second son is an avid reader of the book of Ecclesiastes. I have lost track of how many times he has read through the book. Whether he knows it or not, he's been a HUGE example of diligent Bible Study and digging into God's Wisdom and then applying it. There are times I think he's raising me! My good friend and I agree that there are many times we look at our children and think, "I want to be like them when I grow up." I digress, but am just so thankful that our children go to God first with their questions and doubts and aren't afraid to trust him not only with their eternity, but with their everyday, here and now.
Anyway, with this example of reading these particular scriptures, I find myself in Proverbs often and sometimes Ecclesiastes myself. There is such wisdom in simple yet profound statements. Encouraging while disciplining. Celebrating while warning. But in regards to our feelings getting out of line at times and lashing out to snap us or others: I find countless times in Proverbs where fools let their tongues and feelings get the better of them.
They fall to lustful temptations. Are entrapped by laziness. Sucked into disaster by other's selfishness. All because their feelings run the show. They end up with destroyed lives, poverty stricken, the laughing stock of all.
And then I bounce out to the New Testament in Matthew 26. Peter, lovely Peter, is hyped up on energy and feelings, and declares, "Even if everyone falls away because of you, I will never fall away!....Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!"
It's the evening meal, they've just finished the "Last Supper" where Christ has given the example of the ordinance of Communion, they go out and pray in the garden at night, guards come at night with Judas, and take Jesus for questioning. Now I know roosters don't only crow in the morning, but they generally do not crow throughout the night. And Peter finds himself doing exactly what Christ said he would do at the crack of dawn when that rooster is crowing. Twelve hours maybe, since he declared his emotionally, feeling-laced words of commitment. Mere hours to denying Christ. Letting his feelings rule over him. Confused. Scared. Angry. Letting his feelings snap out and rule for a time.
Can you imagine how much that must have hurt when the rooster crowed?!
Matthew 26:74b-75 "Immediately a rooster crowed, and Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken, "Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times." and he went outside and WEPT BITTERLY.
Letting his feelings rule the moment made him look a fool as he staunchly declared "he would never!" and crushed him when he realized he "just did".
I have been there far more times that I ever want to admit. The hurt could be to myself, my family, my friends, my testimony of Christ, and the list goes on and on. But there's hope in Peter's story. He learned to reign those feelings in. Take them captive. And if you read the book of Acts (DO IT!) you see that what Christ says about Peter in Matthew 16:17-19:
"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven."
The church WAS built on the testimony that Peter declared in Matthew. Ironically, this testimony that Peter is declaring in Matthew is ten chapters before his actions in the courtyard when he denies he has ever even met Christ. Our feelings can lash out and wipe us out, cause us pain and suffering, but they don't always have to be the total demise of us. Peter would come back strong and stand by that testimony that he declared in Matthew 16 time and time again and build Christ's church not on his feelings but on the truth and facts of WHO Jesus is.
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