Mezzamorphis

I’m a logical guy. Always have been. My wife can verify that I’m not much for emotion. I would much rather think through something rather than feel my way through it. When confronted with a difficult decision I tend to weigh the pros and cons and take a long time to come to a final decision. This is probably why I’m a computer programmer and not a social worker. When it comes to faith however, is this the best approach?

I’ve always maintained that I will never cheer more for an individual or group than I would for God. I don’t get too worked up over sports (with a couple exceptions) and when going to concerts I don’t go crazy and yell. When at church I’m much the same way. I don’t get wrapped up in the emotion of what someone is saying. It’s hard for me to express emotion to other people as well. Times when I should show gratitude or simply say thank you, I clam up and don’t do anything.

What’s the best approach when it concerns our faith? It has to be a combination of the two. Logic and reason can combine with emotion and faith to produce a fruitful experience with God. We have logic to see that what we believe is true, that what the Bible says is correct. We have emotion which allows us to plumb the depths of our experience with God, giving us hope for the future.

Many outside Christianity believe that if you want to be a born-again believer you have to check your brain at the door. There was an article a few months ago talking about the relationship between IQ and faith. There are some who feel that people who don’t believe in God have higher IQs than those who do believe. To be honest, I can see why they would think that. It’s hard for me to not analyze everything that happens in my life. It’s hard for me to let go of something and have complete faith that God will take care of it. And when I say “hard”, I mean a range between “extremely difficult” and “nearly impossible”. The emotional side of me can’t get enough of a toe-hold on the mountain of logic I have against it.

The frustrating part of this is I know that God can do anything. I’ve experienced it myself. I’ve had a mild case of asthma all my life. Six months ago I was fighting a respiratory infection that caused my asthma to be a near constant presence. I was using an inhaler constantly to try and keep the wheezing down and be able to take deep breaths. I saw a doctor and he gave me some steroids to take and another inhaler prescription. Well, the inhaler ran out after about a month and I didn’t have the money to get another one at the time. So, my wife and I prayed simply that I would be able to breath deeply enough I could sleep and we would figure something out in the morning. Since that night, I haven’t needed an inhaler once. All this to say, my logical side knows what is possible through God.

There is one place I can express emotion, and that is through music. I’ve been taking turns with three other people in our church leading worship or playing backup on Sundays and I do love doing it. It’s more than the guitar or the singing, it’s the emotion of it. It’s a place I can pour myself out and be emotionally naked in front of God. I’ve always loved that about music.

I think that for some, emotion trumps logic. For others like myself, emotion gets trampled by logic. I also think that as a body of Christ, we need all these different pieces to be successful. My wife is more emotional than I am, and it works out perfectly for us. The most important thing to remember is balance. We have to try and balance out the emotion with the logic to make good sound decisions about our life in Christ. We can be as fired up as possible about sharing Christ, but it might not be the brightest idea to do it at 2 in the morning in front of a biker bar. Logic has its place, and God didn’t call us to be stupid.

How do you view this conflict? Are you more emotional or logical and how does that affect your faith in God?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2007 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Take A Stand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.