Physicality Series
Hi there. It’s been a while.
I haven’t really ever been consistent on this blog, but it’s always been my hope to be. And since the pandemic hit, it’s been harder to respond to texts than ever, much less write a coherent post 🙂
And yet! One day I was forcing myself to write and I thought I’d start a series on the theme of physicality. By that I just mean anything related to the physical world. It seems that most things I’m interested in revolve around this theme, so why not make it a whole thing?! (I even wrote my senior thesis on this in college).
So, on a somewhat consistent basis, I’ll write on topics such as the body, art, pleasure, beauty, place, food, and more. If that interests you, awesome! As always, if you have any additional topic suggestions, be sure to send me a message or leave a comment.
This first post is on emotions.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve considered my mind to be the truest and most trustworthy part of me. As a new Christian, I was around other believers whom God guided by signs and feelings and intuitions. It seemed legit; I believed in how God was leading them. And yet, that wasn’t usually how he led me—or so I thought.
I assumed he didn’t lead me this way because there have been many, many times I’ve felt strongly about something and it turns out I was wrong. It made me distrust my emotions altogether. My thoughts were reliable; my emotions were not. (Although I’m sure many of you have been told not to trust your emotions, all the while discovering time and time again, you were right. More on that in a bit.)
As holistic, embodied people we cannot separate our thoughts and emotions. Even our most logical arguments have emotions amidst them and even our more emotional moments often have a logic to them. We are people; not machines but also not jellyfish.
I think back to my decision to go to college. My senior year of high school was a back and forth struggle between whether I should go to college or the mission field. The deciding factor was an email from a missionary who told me he was often convicted of trying to rush ahead of God, but rarely of going too slow. He gave me truth and reasons for why I might consider going to college first.
But those weren’t the only contributors.
I felt anxious about moving out for the first time to live on the mission field when I didn’t even know how to do my own laundry. I was uneasy—perhaps this was too big of a jump? I also had this sudden desire to go to college, which I hadn’t had until that point. While the reasons played a big role, emotions mattered, too. I decided to go to college.
This isn’t a formula for how God leads us because I don’t think there is one. But I do think God works through our emotions and thoughts and senses and other people to help us make decisions. It’s important that we give weight to all of them, not ignoring how we feel at the expense of what we think and vice versa.
It seems we each tend to be stronger in one area than another. In my college story, I was influenced by my emotions, but my mind was the deciding factor. For others, it may be the opposite—they strongly feel they should make a decision and it’s not until later that their reasons catch up with them.
It’s been a process, but as I grow in awareness of my emotions, I grow in the ability to discern how God leads me through them, too.
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