There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance (Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 4)
Summary: A brief update on my schedule for the next few weeks.
Dear Readers,
As my extended family and I go through the aftermath of Mom’s departure for God’s Country, I find myself with more to do than I have time for. As much as I miss our discussions here, I have to set writing for the blog aside for a few weeks. I will post as often as I can, but at this point, I have no idea how often that might be.
Please continue in prayer and in reading the Scriptures every day. Pray for wisdom, knowledge, and understanding as our brother, Tim, is so fond of advocating for. Pray the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Engage with our heavenly Father continually.
Your brother in Christ,
Jeff Englund
Application: Pray! Read Scripture! Smile – our stay on earth is short!
Food for Thought: God clearly set aside specific times in our lives for different feelings. But what if we felt all kinds of feelings all at once? What if God feels that way all the time?
Jeff,
I’m sorry for your mom’s loss here on earth but I know the joy & gladness that swept through heaven when Jesus said,, “Well done, thy good and faithful servant!” That’s the greeting I look forward to when I’m called home! You are blessed & highly favored in so many ways & one of them was the gift of your mom✝️❤️.
Kathy Mosler, RN
Kathy,
Thank you so very much for your kind words. You were such a blessing to Mom when she was in the hospital. And yes, she is a blessing to us kids as well. She was a good and faithful servant here on earth to our Lord and an amazing mother to us kids.
I believe God must feel many feelings at once. He is a God of compassion and has so many sheep that call to Him at once.
God understands our emotions and wants to bring peace to our hearts:
Matthew 5:3-4 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
We have “His ear” at all times:
Jeremiah 29:12-13 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
He has promised us that He will hear us:
1 John 5:14 “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”
Chris,
Well done! I like your thinking on this.
You put me in mind of the Jim Carrey film, “Bruce Almighty.” In it they explore the impact of everyone praying to God all at once. This was illustrated when the main character, Bruce, decides to have all prayers show up in the form of sticky notes.
God deals with our joy and our pain, all of our joy and pain always.
I think it is a good decision to take a break until you are ready. It was also wise to communicate the plan. Love you brother.
Thank you, Rich.
At least we have a “plan,” right?! 🙂
This is so true!!!!
Kind of mind-blowing, isn’t it? 🙂
Be seeing you after the break brother….. Ron
08-22-2022, Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4, God clearly set aside specific times in our lives for different feelings. But what if we felt all kinds of feelings all at once? What if God feels that way all the time?
God is beyond our ability to comprehend, fully capable of doing anything He chooses to do. God is Immutable, perfect in every way, All Knowing, totally aware of every event in every life, He knows the beginning from the end, not a sparrow falls that He does not know, He knows the number of hairs on our heads. Everything God does is with purpose. He is fully capable of, and I believe He does in fact experience all emotions at once, but is not controlled by any.
Revelations 22:13, Matthew 10:29, Luke 12:7, Romans 8:28,
Proverbs 19:21, 2 Timothy 1:9, Philippians 2:12-13
Emotions are defined as: Strong feelings deriving from one’s circumstances, mood or relationships with others; instinctive or intuitive feelings…..AS DISTINGUISHED FROM REASONING OR KNOWLEDGE.
God chose to create mankind in His image, according to His likeness. He formed our bodies from elements of His creation, as a housing to contain the soul He would breath into it. He placed man in His garden with the assigned task of cultivating and keeping it, and He created woman as his helpmate, to help man stay on task. Their decision based on their EMOTIONS ended with their being separated from God, being barred from the tree of life, and required to live lives of hard work, pain and death.
Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7, 2:15, 2:18:18, 3:22-24
Being created in the image of God includes being given emotions or feelings, happy, sad, thankful, resentful, etc. The key is to understand these are all the effect of present circumstances in our lives. I once very successful. I lost everything and was forced to live off the kindness of others for two years. I was angry, bitter, resentful and turned from God for what He had done to me. In time I turned back to God and through obedience to His word I found peace, joy and material possessions beyond my expectations were returned.
We live in a broken world. One that is ruled by Satan, designed to appeal to our human emotions and belittle persistent pursuit of God. We have received LIFE through Christ, the power to overcome the desires of our flesh as we pursue Gods will in our lives. We retain the ability to feel and express our emotions.
However, through Christ we now have the power to experience many emotions and not be controlled by any.
Ron,
I love where you landed: “… we now have the power to experience many emotions and not be controlled by any.”
Wow. Well said!
It was once told to me that God, as unchanging, can either have no emotions, or feel them all at once and all the time. This idea along with the fact that He knows all things and all time in every moment leads me to assume that God (almighty, all knowing, omnipresent, all powerful, loving, compassionate, judge, just, jealous, hate, merciful) feels all, all the time.
I used to get WAY too into personality tests. So much so that it was a problem. But in that time I learned this: each personality reflects different aspects of God’s character. Positive traits are usually pretty obvious to see as God given and designed. But negative traits are traits that have been twisted out of their original purpose and have become a problem because they are misused.
I bring up personalities because there are some that have been found to not only feel their own emotions, but those of everyone around them. These people would be considered ‘oversensitive’ and ‘overstimulated’ because people can’t handle all of these emotions at once. Some of these people use this God given aspect of their lives as an excuse to be irritable. Some use it to better manipulate others. But the best thing with any thing you have is to use it to understand God better.
I believe God feels every emotion at once. His own experience, in perfect balance, for all the right reasons. But He also knows, with ultimate intimacy, every single human being’s feelings in all their chaos. All of this at every moment, all the time. Other comments express how much we cannot fully grasp this. This is the same for every attribute we can discern. He is beyond us even with our best foot forward in perfect circumstances.
R2T2 made a good point about not being controlled by our emotions. Some of us still can’t imagine having an intense emotion and being in full control of our reaction. The reason we can now have control instead of our emotions is God in us. He can have an emotion and act reasonably, even better, with complete justice and mercy.
I’m very tired, so hopefully there’s a knugget of knowledge in here and not just nonsense 🙂
A,
I have to smile at the thought of giving God a personality test. (You didn’t say this, but I thought it! 🙂 ) The idea gives new meaning to the saying “off the charts”!
Thank you for exploring the idea of what God experiences as God. We cannot comprehend what this means, but the exercise helps us appreciate our Father and what he is capable of.
The other thing I take from the exercise, and you mention Ron’s comment on this as well, is that God is not controlled by his emotions even though he is fully aware of them. God’s emotions are an expression of his perfection and his justice as well as his grace and his mercy. Amazing!