From time to time I am taken aback by my wife and her beauty. We have almost spent 2 years together in the refinement of marriage. These have been two years of unfathomable value to me. My wife is perhaps the single greatest teacher I have. I often find her to be the impetus of growth and the balm to my wounds. I am the recipient of untold grace, support, and encouragement from her.
I’m an extremely emotional individual; I always have been. Even as a young child, I felt everything with extreme depth and poignancy. Through a formula of heart-hardening ingredients, I was taught that my emotions were arrogant back seat drivers. They called out from the back row of the minivan, but reason was at the wheel and only seldom did he make a wrong turn.
But then I met Jesus in another man’s life in college. I’ve been un-learning and re-learning ever since. One of the ways I’ve been flying upside down unawares, was in thinking that emotions played a tertiary role in life.
I found this thought from “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers to be deeply encouraging:
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
As a young believer I became keenly aware of the war-like nature of belief in Christ–the devil who stalks about at the wood line of our thoughts stalking its prey [1 Peter 5:8]. I am often aware, by the Grace of God, of the lurking lies that creep up from within and sabotage my best attempts at Holy thoughts. Things like lust, anger, animosity, despair, or worry. But today brought a new level of awareness–a new alarm has wrung. I am now aware that this attack on my thoughts is far more subtle than I first thought. It’s something very subversive to my internal worship and moment-to-moment communion with God. Its a shift. A subtle movement of my thoughts away from the divine and meant to divide. It is almost as natural as shifting your weight in your chair. It is however, far more threatening.