Drifting along, driven by your emotions? – M K Babu

M.K.Babu

It is easy to be carried away by our emotions during times of sorrow. God is all able to turn our sorrow into joy and fasting into feasting. Though we trust in God and strut around on the mountain tops of our faith, the irony is, often we emotionally deal with times of troubles and land in valleys. God is gracious to impart a courageous and sound mind through our trust in Him. The choice is ours. We need to control our emotions during times of sorrow because we are prone to succumb to our feelings. Dead fish flow along with water currents; the live ones swim against the current.

The Bible has numerous instances of the miraculous work in those lives that were able to control their emotional feelings during distress. One of those can be found during the exodus of the children Israel from Egypt. Moses was asked to lead Israelites by the way of the Red Sea instead of the land of the Philistines even though the latter was shorter route. By the sea God made His people to encamp in a place where an onlooker would think that they were wandering aimlessly in the land and that they had lost the way.  Such delusions are for ignorant observers–neither for God nor for His people. God has a specific purpose in His every plan for His children.

When the children of Israel saw that Pharaoh’s army chasing them on chariots, they couldn’t find an escape route. Strangely, the people who saw God’s mighty hand of deliverance began going under their emotional feelings. Some of them were holding their family together and crying while others were angry with the leader Moses for bringing them out of Egypt.  But the man of God Moses who could take control over his emotion said to the people: “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever.” (Exo 14:13). Consequently, the same red sea that was preventing their journey ahead was divided for the Israelites to pass over and the waters united again to destroy their enemy.

God can destroy the enemy that is chasing us with same ‘obstacle’ that was used to hinder us for a while. Succumbing to our emotional feelings let us just not rebel against God. The depth of the Red Sea may terrify us but the height of God’s love for us will comfort our hearts.

Yet another incident in the New Testament times: After the sudden loss of their only brother Lazarus, his sisters Martha and Mary went into a deep state of sorrow and emptiness. Mary couldn’t bear the death of her brother she began to crawl down the steps of depression. She couldn’t even get up to receive Jesus at His arrival in Bethany, their village.

On the contrary, Martha got up and walked to the village gate to receive Jesus. She expressed her sorrow by saying that had Jesus been there her brother would not have died. Emotionally, Martha could blame Jesus for the death of his brother as many blame God today for the disaster in their lives. Or, she could easily ignore Jesus for His inability to save her brother from death.

She was not ready to give up by becoming an emotional fool rather she demonstrated her faith in Jesus by saying “Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You” (John 11:22).  Resultantly, she received her brother alive who was dead and laid in the grave for four days.

Those who trust in the Lord will never be put to shame. Martha took courage and received Jesus, went along with Him to the graveyard, encouraged her sister Mary to go with her to the grave where the dead body of Lazarus was laid. God can’t sit idle watching all these things; He stood up and stretched out His hand to raise Lazarus from the dead. God works for those whose trust is in Him. “The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry” Ps 34:15.

Share This Post

Tweet