The Heart of God
“Oh, that there were a heart like this in them, to fear Me, and to keep all My commandments all the days, that it might be well with them, and with their sons forever.” Deuteronomy 5:29
Oh – God feels! Yes, I know that the Greek philosophers and theologians among us will tell you that God is beyond emotions. But that’s not the kind of God you’ll find in the Bible. God agonizes over His creation. He is elated in obedience. He desperately wants to gather His children into His arms of protection and blessing. Did you know that you can break God’s heart? Did you know that you can cause Him pain and longing agony? God desires your good. He wants shalom to be continually present in your life.
One of the great tragedies of living in a Greek-based culture is the denial of the righteous place of emotions. God purposely made you with emotional capacity. He does not want you to stuff your feelings away in a dark closet or deny that they have a place in His service or strive to rid yourself of your upsetting emotions. God feels too!
Emotions are powerful and crucial elements of life. They can take us from depths of despair to heights of jubilation. They can bring us to tears or propel us to shouts of joy. Only the Greek view of a balanced, unaffected life seeks to cast aside all those things that disturb the tranquil mind. But, in case you haven’t noticed, life refuses to accommodate that kind of balance. There is always something that is out of whack. There is always some feeling that interferes with the perfectly controlled life. God made it that way. God is the God of life as it is, right here and now, filled with feelings. Emotional energy is vital to spiritual growth. The goal is not to throw out my feelings but rather to bring them into harmony with God’s feelings. And God says, “Miy-yitten!” “Oh, if only they would listen.”
What is the pathway for bringing my feelings into harmony with God’s feelings? How can my anger, joy, frustration, jubilation, hatred and love be aligned with Him. Well, that’s the purpose of the commandments. They are more than rules for right living. They are emotional-directional arrows. When I meditate on the commandments and realize that God designed them with my best interest in mind so that I might enjoy the full range of living, I see that following them brings me into harmony with Him. Following them lets me feel like He does. God does not stand over you as the stern tyrant of creation, watching your every move in order to catch you disobeying. Quite the opposite. God agonizes over you, doing everything that He can to bring you into fullness of life and rich fellowship with Him. All of this is bound up in one tiny word, miy-yitten; a word we translate with the emotional expression, “Oh.”
God cries over you and me. “Oh, if only you would turn your hearts completely to Me.” How He longs to care for us! How He wishes that we would trust Him! Do you feel it?
Topical Index: Emotions
