EMOTIONS
04th Nov 2020
Hebrews 4:15 in the King James translation contains the phrase, “touched by the feeling of our infirmities.” The NIRV renders it like this, “we have a high priest who can feel it when we are weak and hurting.”
I’m so glad we have a Saviour who totally understands what it is to be human, has shared in our joys and sorrows, has feelings and can empathise with us. Growing up, I somehow came under a belief that the mind should be elevated above the emotions, and feelings should be kept in check and not trusted.
The Holy Spirit has corrected this thinking and taught me to value my emotions, intuitive reactions and feelings which are real, but cannot always be explained. I also understand that my emotions are more than a feeling, they have power.
It is easy to quote scripture and to receive it in the mind, without experiencing what it is intending to convey. Some years ago this was illustrated to me in a very real way. In a dream, I was heading towards a revival meeting that was taking place in a country chapel in quite an isolated location. I was driving along country lanes trying to find this place, aware of wonderful singing and heading towards the source of the sound. On arrival, I was so disappointed because the meeting had finished and I had missed my opportunity to be part of what God was doing. A young teenager observed my sadness and asked why I was so upset. I told him that I had so wanted to meet with the Holy Spirit; his response was, “I can pray for you.” As he did I was flooded, filled, overwhelmed with a wonderful peace and a feeling I couldn’t describe.
I woke and asked the Lord what it was? He replied, “My comfort.” I immediately recalled the scripture in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, which speaks about, “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
I experienced this comfort in my dream. The Holy Spirit revealed it as a tangible characteristic of God, more than words, a force, a power, something very real we can access and give away.
Fear is tangible and terrifyingly real, as is grief and sorrow. Love is also able to be experienced and is a power able to be poured into us by the Holy Spirit. Joy is an undervalued and often untapped resource, again supernatural and not dependant on circumstances.
The Fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control, are of the same ilk, not simply words but power sockets that we can plug into, experience and give away.
by Joyce Sibthorpe
