My Beloved and I were talking about how we communicate our "feelings". Feelings are obviously an important part of our lives here on earth, so it is not a matter of ignoring them. That is not a good thing, by and large.On the other hand, it seems that it is not always healthy to simply speak about how you feel all the time, nor is it wise to act solely based on feelings, by and large. Of course, you won't get this message from most of our entertainment.
Anyway, sometimes our feelings can be deceptive "The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jer. 17:9 This does not mean we cannot discount everything that we feel or that come out of our hearts, but it does mean we must be even more diligent about what comes from our "mouths".
Anyway, many different marriage counselors/communicators (Gary Smalley, John Gray, James Dobson, to name a few) discuss the importance of distinguishing between what someone said and what "I heard you say" (or I feel like you are saying thus and such).
My Beloved and I understand this very important distinction while talking with each other. Sometimes I have feeling that I know do not match reality. I "felt like": she hurt my feelings on purpose and was being mean. The reality: we were joking, and I got extra sensitive about something and took it the wrong way.
I felt like the guy who suddenly stopped for no reason in front of me was an idiot. The reality: he stopped in order to avoid hitting the animal who just crossed.
Feelings are important. However, check and see if what you are feeling is based in reality. If your feelings could be mistaken, be sure to communicate this by making the distinction. For my beloved and I, this distinction has helped our healthy communication a lot. Our feelings get validated while we understand sometimes they are irrational and there may be something else going on.
It also helps in our disagreements. Even if I am usually the cause. :-) Thoughts? Additions? Disagree?
5 comments:
<<Feelings are important. >>
True dat. Feelings and emotions keep us safe and move us to take care of some actions that sometimes are required in life. Example: I might feel rather scared when I'm standing up on some tall ladder or something and need to be extra careful lest I fall over and get myself killed.
OTOH, is the Jeremiah text you cite in today's entry all that pertinent here? I always thought what the author had in mind there was the sort of thing that the dark side of the Force does to a person: it makes them call that which is good "bad" and call that which is bad "good" and really subscribe to the warped sense of reality which causes this confusion of identities. This is different than someone's having *knee-jerk reactions* on account of his or her feelings, but what do I know?
-K
Aujourd'hui le mot est "mslrkon," et "ewgoomi." :P
Kwame:
"OTOH, is the Jeremiah text you cite in today's entry all that pertinent here? I always thought what the author had in mind there was the sort of thing that the dark side of the Force does to a person: it makes them call that which is good "bad" and call that which is bad "good" and really subscribe to the warped sense of reality which causes this confusion of identities."
---I agree with you that the author seems to indicate that they call evil good, and vice versa (And Matthew Henry's commentary would support that perspective).
However, I think it can be applicable to my point that our feelings (our "heart" as the movies want us to follow :-) ) can be misleading.
Kwame: "This is different than someone's having *knee-jerk reactions* on account of his or her feelings, but what do I know?"
----I agree it is different, (and looking again at my examples-I can see how it would seem that I was merely refering to knee jerk reactions), but again, my main point was to make the observation that many times my feelings, I might even add perception, are deceitful to what is really happening.
Other examples: I feel saved... My life, thoughts, deeds may be completely contrary to what it really means to be a follower of Christ. It doesn't matter how good I feel about it. I am thinking about Ray Comfort's thoughts on "false converts"
I don't feel saved, loved...The Bible has many verses to outline God's true plan of salvation, and how He loves His children-doesn't matter how I feel.
I hope that makes some sense. It is late and I can't type as fast as I think. :-)
Perhaps my addition of the verse was best saved for another discussion such as those who think more highly than they ought. (Though I might feel too convicted. :-)
-D
hfjkhf siaughiau rbnvjk cniw---back to you. :-) What did you say anyway?
<<hfjkhf siaughiau rbnvjk cniw---back to you. :-) What did you say anyway?>>
Even as I type this response, all the words on the Web page outside this particular response box are French; everything’s written in French; one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen or heard of, yet Google keeps doing this.
So basically that was the sort of thing I was talking about, along with the redundant(?) need to use two verification words to post a response.
<<Other examples: I feel saved... My life, thoughts, deeds may be completely contrary to what it really means to be a follower of Christ. It doesn't matter how good I feel about it. I am thinking about Ray Comfort's thoughts on "false converts">gt;
The word “completely” adds an important nuance to the statement. Still, I’m wondering what we are to make of the case of regenerate individuals who are divinely allowed to wallow in the mire of a corpus of personal thoughts and deeds which is like barely not completely contrary to what it means to be a follower of Christ. (And such cases are real, for in certain ways we can test our feelings and observations about the matter against the promises of the Scriptures and thereby rest assured that the person is “saved” even if he or she sure does stumble a lot.) And having proven that the person has in fact been born of God, what are we to make of moral shortcomings of theirs? After all, these hardly seem condusive to any sort of process of godly discipline of the same person.
Oh yeah, I remember you talking about the language changes before.
Kwame: "The word “completely” adds an important nuance to the statement. Still, I’m wondering what we are to make of the case of regenerate individuals who are divinely allowed to wallow in the mire of a corpus of personal thoughts and deeds which is like barely not completely contrary to what it means to be a follower of Christ. (And such cases are real, for in certain ways we can test our feelings and observations about the matter against the promises of the Scriptures and thereby rest assured that the person is “saved” even if he or she sure does stumble a lot.)"
----I wonder if this is why we are to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling"? In order to not become lazy in our Christianity and putting our trust not in Christ, but in "the prayer we prayed long ago". It is a tough question for me to answer partly because I am stuck between the Armenian and Calvanist understanding on some things. How many sins would it take to pass the line of questioning one's salvation? Is this question relevant from a Calvanistic perspective?
Kwame: "And having proven that the person has in fact been born of God, what are we to make of moral shortcomings of theirs? After all, these hardly seem condusive to any sort of process of godly discipline of the same person."
----Again, this is a difficult question in how it all works out. I know i can have assurance of my salvation, but I cannot be sure of yours (or others-I can only look at the fruits and byproducts of those that claim to be Christians), so to speak.
It sometimes scares me as I consider how narrow the road may be to salvation. Where myself or many others who say they are followers of Christ, may not be. Interesting thoughts, to be sure.
How's the weather been in your area?
Derrick
<<----I wonder if this is why we are to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling"? In order to not become lazy in our Christianity and putting our trust not in Christ, but in "the prayer we prayed long ago". It is a tough question for me to answer partly because I am stuck between the [Arminian] and [Calvinist] understanding on some things. How many sins would it take to pass the line of questioning one's salvation? Is this question relevant from a [Calvinistic] perspective?>>
It’s relevant to both paradigms with their subdivisions. For there are relatively uncontroversial passages of the Bible which inform us that God works within believers (Php 2.13), “that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself,” and that God saves people unto good works of theirs (Rom 7.4, Eph 2.10).
Certain things necessarily are true of any person born of God--things concerning his behavior and things concerning his forensic standing before God--and the issues raised by these things actually transcend Calvinist/Arminianism controversy. Think of it this way: let it be that God throws Christians away and begins to hold their sins against them if they come to a point where, like, at all times they're sinning and doing no good. Fine--so one can “lose his salvation.” But the fact remains, nonetheless, that just before God threw these people away they were doing something which according the Scriptures should be impossible: to live and fail in such a way that contradicts the Scriptures that I just cited and quoted. OTOH, suppose now that God keeps his people. Well, you still have the same problem mentioned before *if* you can find Christians who seem to live and to fail in ways which are “very” unchristian-like.
So in this case it doesn't matter what degree to which you agree with Calvinism or Arminianism. Neither directly solves the problem at hand.
<<----Again, this is a difficult question in how it all works out. I know i can have assurance of my salvation, but I cannot be sure of yours (or others-I can only look at the fruits and byproducts of those that claim to be Christians), so to speak.
It sometimes scares me as I consider how narrow the road may be to salvation. Where myself or many others who say they are followers of Christ, may not be. Interesting thoughts, to be sure.>>
Funny you should say that. The personalities of the New Testament do something all the time: they talk about the people who “go to church” with them and labor with them as if they ARE believers, as if there is no question as to what they are or how God has blessed them. Now, sure, *maybe* someone will assert that people like the apostles Paul and Peter could speak non-presumptively (and non-presumptuously) about these people because they had privileged knowledge from the Holy Spirit that somehow peered into the human soul and laid bare the contents of another person’s heart. But realistically speaking, how many people on this earth have really had such an ability, and who on this earth really wants to say that you or I or some other person is necessarily speaking presumptuously if we dare say “Greg Koukl is a believer” or “Billy Graham is a believer”? No one really.
IOW, perhaps none of us has apodictic knowledge that this or that person is more than a mere nominal-Christians. Yet according to the looser sense of certainty, no need to loose sleeping worrying if you messed up by thinking Greg Koukl was a believer or not.
<<How's the weather been in your area?>>
I don’t know; you tell me.
My area is SoCal fo' life.
I haven’t given up on CA like so many of these other silly traitors who have moved on to, well, practically every other State of the continental US besides the plains States.
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