In Body-Soul-Spirit Praying, I wrote about emotions as a sort of a gift God has given us to connect spiritually to Him in prayer. Love seems to me, at its core, to be an emotion, with care, concern, passion, etc. being fruits of that love, also manifested as emotions. These "positive", life-giving emotions appear to me to be what melds my body, mind, and will together to more effectively focus my prayers, which at times (at least according to my experience) end up producing miraculous results.
Today in our morning devotions, I was considering my "negative" emotions (e.g., fear, frustration, despair, hopelessness), which I have formed the habit of entertaining when it comes to certain things in my life (foremost a large, seemingly impossible-to-pay-off debt that has loomed over our family for decades.) It occurred to me that if "positive" emotions can open me up to God's faith flowing with power through me for a miracle, "negative" emotions might be the very things that are keeping a miracle from manifesting.
I have often wondered why, why, why we haven't been delivered from this debt, despite much generous giving (which once held my only hope for deliverance), much (okay, probably mustard seed-sized) faith entered into because of God's loving promises in the Bible, and much of our own efforts to attack the problem with our own strength. Along these same lines, I have also often wondered why parents of sick children sometimes don't seem to get answers to their prayers, when it seems perfectly clear to me in God's Word that His will is ALWAYS to heal. Does He really care? If He did, wouldn't He do something? (Age-old questions, for sure)
In homemeeting last Tuesday we were discussing Paul's thorn (II Corinthians 12). From the Message Bible, verses 7-10: "...I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then He told me, 'My grace is enough, it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.' Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness....And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become." (Italics mine)
Just for the record, I don't think, as some do, that God was concerned with cutting Paul down to size. Neither do I think God gives us tragedies (like sick and dying children) to get us to trust Him. Those viewpoints don't line up with His Word. But here's the thing: focusing negatively on my problem, whatever it may be (sickness, debt, etc.), feeding it with my emotions of fear, frustration, despair, hopelessness and the like, causes the problem to remain. It is when I can begin appreciating the problem as a gift, letting it push me to my knees, and reinforcing in myself the knowledge that the weaker I get, the stronger (through Christ) I become, only then can I let go of my negative emotions, which very well might be the very things that are keeping a miracle from manifesting. He says His grace is sufficient, it's all I need. So I let go of fear, hopelessness, and self-effort, and rest in Christ's strength, His completed work. It's all I need, not just to be relieved from my mental burdens, but to solve my problem, to bring my miracle to pass.
At this point I'm not sure if my thinking and applications are the answer to all of the "age-old questions", but I definitely want to feed on this for awhile. Could my greatest weaknesses really be my greatest strengths? Could negative emotions be that powerful? It sure seems like Paul thought so. This is good stuff to contemplate.
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