More Than A Feeling

Which is more powerful: the facts or your feelings?

Yes I know – facts are True.  But true is a boring hatchback parked neatly in my brain.Feelings are pimped-up red ferraris that power through the blood superhighways, pumping out Meatloaf and mooning the olds.

Example

fact: A hormone  is a chemical released by a cell, a gland, or an organ in one part of the body that sends out messages that affect cells in other parts of the organism. Cells respond to a hormone when they express a specific receptor for that hormone. The hormone binds to the receptor protein , resulting in the activation of a signal transduction mechanism that leads to cell type specific responsesthatpleasestoptalkingmyearsarebleedingandI’velostthewilltolive.

feeling:  Tom Hardy loosens his tie/takes off his shirt/breathes my kidneys start to spasm and I have to sit down. NOW I believe in hormones.

No-one writes songs about facts.

However:

REO Speedwagon are unwilling to fight their feelings, Big Fun can’t shake them, Franz Ferdinand can’t stop them and as for Eddy Grant, Chaka Khan and JLS – well they won’t stop asking if you Feel what They Feel.  Even Elton is feeling the love (well – at least for tonight).

all of which is enough to make you feel like making love/like a (natural) woman/like dancin/the earth move.

In which case perhaps you should call Dr Feelgood.

..

Truth is, feelings sound like a great idea. But cut adrift from the facts they’re positively dangerous. Like taking R Kelly at his word and jumping out a window.

We need both.  But sometimes, the facts come first.

In the Christian life, there are all kinds of facts I ‘know’ but don’t feel.

I ‘know’ that Jesus loves me, died for me and rose again.  I know that my old life is buried with Him and that in Him I now have a new name and a new identity – far removed from the old guilt and shame and fear. I know that He’s my husband and he calls me by a new name:

you will be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will bestow…

 ⁴ No longer will they call you Deserted,
or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called Hephzibah,^[a]
and your land Beulah^[b];
for the Lord will take delight in you,
and your land will be married.
⁵ As a young man marries a young woman,
so will your Builder marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62)

Hephzibah means ‘my delight is in her’. Beulah means ‘married’.

As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride so Jesus delights in us.I don’t always feel it – but then, I don’t always feel like I’m married to Glen either. Does that mean I’m not? No.  Does it give me license to act like a single laydee? It does not.

Goodbye sweet Tom.  Goodbye..