I'll just tell you about two discussions. One was about remembering and one about loving.
1. Someone asked me why in the book of Exodus it says of our Lord:
"God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob." (Exodus 2:24; italics mine)Why does God remember his promises - has he forgotten them? Did it slip his mind? Did it take the cries of his children to bring it back to the front of his mind?
2. Someone else talked to me about loving and wanting to be a more loving person and having a warmer heart and asked me about love.
And the discussions were related. Both were about the way the Bible thinks and the way we think. I think the Bible thinks much more in terms of actions and less in terms of attitude.
1. When God remembers - it is an action. He brings it to mind. Just like we can be commanded to "remember God" and it is a sin to "forget him", God brings us into his mind. It is even possible to deliberately forget (2 Peter 3:5). The more you actively remember (in a Biblical sense), the more you remember God in our sense of the word (he remains on your mind).
2. Love is also an action. We are commanded to love. It is the whole point of this life! We do not wait for the feeling. My advice for this person who wants to be a warmer, more loving person was: not to wait for the feeling, but to do the actions. You do loving things to people and you stoke the fire of the affections. Often really bitter and selfish people are that way because they do not actually love anyone in actions. If loving a dog can take away some of the rough edges of bitterness, how much more a human being in actions. How much more, when we love God himself!
The same principle could be said of joy. It is a command! The more you rejoice (in the Biblical sense), the more you have joy (in our feeling sense).
Remember God, love him and rejoice in him - and the attitudes and feelings will follow.
3 comments:
Andrew this post has had me thinking for days.
Would it be fair to say emotions derive from our thinking? That is, emotions are responses to what is thought.
I recently went through heaps of verses on joy in OT mainly (so far) and it seems that joy is a response to God's character and deeds.
This all made sense to me but how does this fit with attitudes? Are attitudes the same as thoughts?
If you have no time for this don't worry
Di
Hi Di. Thanks for your questions. I'm not sure that attitudes is necessarily the word I should have used. Its hard to scratch around for the right one.
In your reading of verses about joy in the OT are they mainly
1. "active" actions. ie. I rejoice in you, O Lord
OR
2. "passive" emotions. ie. because you have done this I have joy?
Andrew
you have given me much to work on!
I can't answer straight away - will take a closer look.
Do think this is an important area to think through - heart, mind, emotions, actions...lots of confused thinking around.
I have always thought simply 'what you think - is what you feel'.
But I have never explored it in scripture!
Di
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