Over the past few weeks, I've been giving my thoughts and some biblical themes on the subject of discipline. We've looked at physical, spiritual, and mental discipline, and now I'm moving into the final area for this discussion: emotional discipline.
In a general sense, do you have control over the emotions you feel in life, or do they have control over you? I ask this as a general rule, since we all have times in our lives where emotions come on strong and hold sway over us. Those times are not part of today's discussion. What we're talking about is life in general. Are you easily distracted from the everyday tasks at hand because your emotions get the better of you? Or, on the other hand, do you approach life as though emotions have no effect whatsoever on what happens?
I would suggest that neither extreme is healthy, nor is it according to the fashion in which God created us as humans. We aren't to be swayed by whatever emotion strikes us, as though our whole life is lived based upon our moods and how things strike us. Neither are we to approach life as though our emotions are something to be discarded and set aside (I believe this is a faulty assumption that comes out of the enlightenment, which seeks objectivity above all, and then fails utterly at it). God created humans with emotion, though He did not create us in such a way that our emotions are to be the determining factor for how we live our lives.
Which end of the spectrum do you tend to fall toward? How has this been a good thing in your life, and how has it also worked to create difficulties?
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