Why Feelings Are Necessary

I get so sick of people questioning the use of emotion in a ministry, church, or any type of setting where real life is happening.

“Jeremiah 17:9- the heart is wickedly deceitful above all else, who can understand it”, they crow.

There are just times when reality is going to contradict all of your learned information, truths, systems, and other malarky. Even for those of us who are more logic-driven and data-driven.

The emotions, especially those that are rooted in the spirit, the brain/mind, amygdalae, the heart, and the reins, are potent imprinters of experience.

And from everything as SRA, DID, CRA, and PTSD, to rape, abortion, war, political abuse, environmental abuse, animal abuse, and social or cultural abuse, feelings are often one of the largest markers in an entity of trauma.

I use the word “entity” because emotions are not just felt in humans. Animals, plants, and the land are all examples of things that possess emotion.

“The trees clap their hands.”

“The cattle went lowing as the carried the ark.”

Etc.

So, to those who are all logic-driven, the following may not make sense for you.

Feelings that have been cleansed and redeemed, contrary to how most Christ-followers, are one of the first early-warning systems in us. And they are designed, in part, not only to enable us to really respond to negative situations, but also to respond to positive situations, so we have this capacity we call “savoring” an experience.

We were made to savor, and that comes through our emotions, which causes neurons to wire together and fire together

When we discount all emotional expression, we potentially hamstring or kill our ability to recover from trauma and wounds that heal.

When we can’t emote well, or when we misjudge an emotional baseline as Bipolar or OCD and then medicate those emotions out of existence with Lithium or some other garbage, we disempower and potentially strip the spirit and/or soul of their ability to recover to a place of whole essence, and thereby render ourselves vulnerable.

A diagnosis may not be heaven’s view of our reality. A diagnosis is not the be-all or end-all.

Our strong emotions were designed as responses to injustice, to celebration, to sexuality, to liberation, and to protection.

Men and women have strong emotions in order to protect, and preserve, and defend. And to discern. And if emotions are made to be discouraged, then the emotional leading of Mercies is irrelevant, and then some critical dynamic of the Mercy experience is to be questioned, and then they as a tribe are to be questioned.

Nonsense.

All of us were made to feel and have feelings to bring us to a place of sensitivity.

And to savor experiences.

And to connect to our timeline. By the way, that hyperlink is to a resource that will help you reconnect your emotions. But, be mindful, your emotions, in fullness, were designed to be as safe as Aslan.

If we do not want our emotions, then we will affect our timelines. Badly. And we will feel the disconnect, whether or not we want to feel that disconnect.

Ironically, even when you don’t feel, you still feel something.

The bottom line: a bad interpretation of Jeremiah 17:9 will not make us any safer. The only thing that will make us safer is if we embrace who we are in fullness and enjoy and savor the FULLNESS of our design.

Savoring transforms the brain.

Savoring leads us into deeper and fuller expressions of worship of and love toward our King.

Savoring is connects us in our left amygdala to the full expression of the awe of G-d, which is a critical component of the life of a follower of Yeshua.