Emotion

I emailed a little with Darren (my pastor back in Long Beach) this week and he was asking about my time here. A specific question he asked was “how are the emotional ups and downs?” I’ve learned a few rote answers for people when they often ask me the same question. My typical answer regarding my emotions is that they are drastic, when they’re up, they’re sky high, when they’re down, they’re in the dirt. To be honest I don’t understand them and its entirely frustrating when I can’t shake a feeling.

Yesterday, I played soccer out on the pitch with some Tanzanians and followed it directly with playing my normal Sunday night basketball. When I got home last night, I was exhausted. Not after long, I was in my bed having my devotional and found myself too tired to pray. I rarely only pray in my head, there’s too much going on in there. But speaking out loud just seemed like too much effort. As I laid there, a feeling set in on me and I can’t put words to it. It didn’t feel good. I managed to start praying and went through my Sunday list of people to pray for and any other things that came to my mind. I went to sleep and hoped that I would feel refreshed in the morning and feel good to start another week.

Unfortunately, its pretty much stuck with me to this point. It almost feels like an exhausted longing. I don’t know what or who I’m longing for, but that’s what it feels like. Maybe I’m just not close enough to the Lord. I do feel His presence normally, but my mind is getting in the way of His voice or He’s just being quiet right now.

Emotion seems like such a strange and erratic thing. My emotions are so ambiguous and random. I was over at Dusty and Marlaina’s watching the USA vs. England match Saturday night and I jumped out of my seat with excitement when their keeper let Mathis’ shot go through. If you know me, I love sports (and yes, we’ll win Game 6), but seriously what’s up with that? This World Cup match has no bearing on my life, but that’s what I get so excited for? And yet, I remember when my former girlfriend of two years broke up with me, I became so sad, but hardly cried at all. I’m not afraid of crying, but it just didn’t happen despite my feeling. Or just thinking about the last seven or so months as a whole, my emotions have been across the board and domicile at the same time. I don’t understand them.

My pastor here, Pastor Shoo, always says “No one can make you sad, glad or mad. You choose for yourself.” My friends here are big on declaration and I see the power in speaking blessing to change situations. That saying is hard to think of though at times like this. Am I choosing to be sad? That’s not really rhetorical, I don’t have any idea how to control my emotions. I can control my anger. But I have a hard time generating sadness into happiness, unless something outside of me does it on my behalf.

I was hoping to find some therapeutic refuge in writing. It helps me organize myself a little. But even now as I’m writing my emotional ambiguity and foggy mind seem to be infiltrating. Sorry if there’s no flow to this post.

Since this is my mood right now, it made me wish that I could just turn off the emotion button in my heart. As soon as that thought came across though, I took it back. It may suck to feel so sucky right now, but the Lord gave us emotions for a reason. Can you imagine how dull our lives would be if there were no emotion? I’m sure we wouldn’t mind losing anger and sadness, but what kind of world would we be living in with no joy? With no feeling of peace and contentment? We’d be like robots.

Emotions are important and I believe they often are a reflection of the heart and mind. Nonetheless, I think something should be said to not allowing our emotions to dictate our actions and therefore the direction of our lives. How many foolish decisions have been made by people saying “I just felt like it was the right thing to do”? Some even disguise this in our Christian circles and walk a line of blasphemy saying they felt the Lord tell them to do something, meanwhile such things go against His written word.

I think the importance of emotions lie in the fact that they are often a result. How’s that corny phrase go? “People won’t remember what you did for them, but they’ll remember how you made them feel” or something like that. There’s truth in that. The actions are important, but they often get forgotten. Because of that the Lord put this mechanism in us that will help us remember the people that did them. Even if it’s a bad situation and you remember sadness, that feeling will remind you to not go back there. And the romantic part of me knows that the times of sadness, make the times of joy that much sweeter. Joy, what a wonderful gift. Joy is one of those good things that need no analysis from bumbling writers like me. Some good things are good for the sake of being good and that’s God ordained.

In any emotion, I know that the Lord remains at the helm. I’ve mentioned it before, but I commonly pray that, all else aside, my actions would be righteous. I may feel sad and unmotivated, but so long as I can get to TOA tomorrow and be a good dad and my kids remember the joy and love they felt from me, all is well. I know that my emotions are not ahead of me and where I’m at. They are subjected to my mind and actions; my mind and actions are subjected to the Lord’s will. My emotions and heart are just trying to catch up to where the Lord has put me. No matter how I feel, I know that the Lord is with me and His grace is sufficient, for this we give praise.

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The Rundown: The last nine days have been up and down emotionally as you might have already gathered. The Vanguard team is gone and its crazy to think that their annual trip is done just like that. What was so significant for me personally (and for each of them to whatever extent now) went by just like that and VU won’t be back til next summer. It was a good time on Wednesday night at Ryan and Stacy’s for Mexican food and then worship on Thursday night. I spoke at a youth conference at Pastor Unity’s on Saturday morning and it went very well. It was the fullest I’ve seen his church and this is the third time that I’ve preached there. Preaching is growing on me, so long as I can tell the Lord is using me. On Saturday night, I went over to Gina and Lauren’s for an evening in prayer for Tanzania and the states. After that Lauren and I headed over to Dusty and Mar’s for the match. So great to watch a sports game. Without TV at my house, my entire time in Tanzania I’ve only been able to watch highlights. The big news on Sunday was that I was announced as a church elder at ICC. Ryan had given me a heads up during discipleship on Tuesday and my first reaction was laughing out loud. I must be the youngest elder in all of church history. Haha. At any rate, it may not come down to much more than a title and no one has really told me what it will entail. Things are different here. Haha. I’m also the assistant worship pastor, which is more along the lines of what I was expecting. Other than that, the kids are out for the next month and I had a good time with them today doing an art project. It should be a fun (and busy) school break. Alright, that’s it. AMANI.