Those Emotions!

Good Wednesday morning! I got my feelings hurt. What does that mean? Everyone knows it. Yet the phrase can be difficult to define. You and I can point to examples, tell our stories, and we know when it has happened. But...how does one explain how my feelings have been hurt? In Christ we often go to His word to see what we should do or learn from something like that. I can think of one story right off: the time when James and John earned their 'sons of thunder' nickname. Jesus rebuked them and I suspect the brothers had their feelings hurt as we like to say. Or what about the time that Jesus called Peter 'Satan'? That would certainly hurt my feelings.

Sometimes we get an emotional beating when we are in the wrong. The other person overreacts to something and says harsh things and we have our feelings hurt. That happened a lot in the Marines where so many of us were young men passing from teenage boy to manhood. Juvenile prank sometimes met with rank and responsibility and the prankster's feelings could end up hurt in a heated butt-chewing. Yes, there is a story behind that one. All of us probably had that passage in some organization or workplace. Part of that is in learning to leave behind the childish things. The other part is learning that others do have a certain power to cause emotional pain through words or actions. We also have the power to heal with more words when we have hurt another person.

Jesus didn't apologize for rebuking James and John, or Peter, or anyone else for that matter. Jesus was always right and He didn't have to apologize for being right. However, I'm am certain that Jesus did later take James and John aside and speak more gently to them. Scholars tend to think that John was the youngest of the disciples, so perhaps Jesus found him weeping somewhere away from the group later that evening. When a person is flat out wrong and respected authority rebukes him, the hurt can be rather intense. With gentle words, perhaps even a gentle laugh, Jesus healed the hurt though, maybe, not all the way. The lesson needed to be learned and Jesus would not have wanted his young disciple to forget.

Years later something may trigger a memory of a hard lesson in us. The same hurt feelings may be recalled in almost the same intensity. It isn't that God wants to rake us over the same coals again, but that the lesson stick in our hearts. Some emotional lessons are so harsh that we go far out of our way to make sure the same thing doesn't happen again. Emotions: can't stand 'em at times, don't want to live without 'em, love the good ones, hate the bad ones, praise the Lord for 'em and trust in God to train us up right.

Have a great new day in Christ!
Bucky