WE LIVE in a time when most people are experientially rich and relationally poor—we know everyone slightly and no one deeply.
We desire to give our children the experiences we never had—in the process, we expose them—and their lives are simple till they are not.
We forget that the rules of many things are always shifting, and everyone is looking for a lasting relationship.
But if things are not working, what can we do?
The Narrative
I DO NOT want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea.
They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. (1 Corinthians 10:1-5)
God wanted them to be His people, but they murmured and complained—they desired evil.
They did not know that grumbling and the absence of praise is the beginning of darkness.
THE CHILDREN of Israel allowed their emotions to take the lead—and they put their lives in jeopardy.
Today, we live in a reactionary culture where we choose what makes us happy.
However, it's easy to say that they didn't choose carefully but isn't this what we do?
We undermine ourselves—some shop for bathing suits more carefully than they do for husbands and end up with an unintended outcome.
WHAT IF I told you that you'd believed a lie for so long—when we tell people to follow their hearts, forgetting that their inherent feelings influence their decisions.
If you love to eat out and do it often, you are following your heart.
When you rather sit on the couch than exercise, you're following your heart, and you're basing your decision on your feelings.
The gullible believe anything they are told, but clever people know to question every step. (Proverbs 14:15)
THE HEART is the seat of our emotions, the ruling centre of our lives, and we are to guard it with all diligence because out of it flows the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:23)
Jeremiah says—the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
The sick heart is the un-regenerated one.
David cried out—create in me a clean heart and renew the right spirit in me. (Psalm 51:10)
Until you allow God's Word to go from your head to your heart, it wouldn't be beneficial to you—to progress; you have to believe the Word of God with your heart. (Romans 10:10)
They couldn't appreciate God's blessings because their testimonies remained in their heads and did not go to their hearts.
THEY HATED how things were moving slowly and forgot that God delivered them from Pharaoh.
They reacted like the world.
But Romans 12:2 says, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
Do not pattern your life to what the world wants. The Word of God and His ways are counter-cultural and counter-intuitive to the ways of the world.
Jesus told his disciples that if anyone will come after Him, he must deny himself, take up their cross and follow Him. And whosever wants to save his life will have to give it away. (Matthew 16:24-26)
BRINGING IT TOGETHER
HAVE YOUR EMOTIONS ever led you astray?
To progress, it's never wise to go back to the past simply for its own sake. The past sometimes shows us how to live and sometimes, how not to live – C. S. Lewis.
And if you do not learn from history mistakes, you are bound to repeat them.