Listen to Our Hearts

But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child.  

-- Galatians 4:4-7 NLT

I write software for a living and as such have a pretty logical mind.  It helps in my line of work as the computer will do exactly what I tell it to, no more, no less, and it will do it very fast.  It doesn’t care if what I tell it to do is right or wrong; it has no emotion about it at all.  It won't do anything but what I tell it, even if it is wrong and turns the computer into a smoking hole.  So getting things in the right order and having all the steps needed to do something is kind of second nature to me at work.  And I find that sometimes I treat my study of God’s word and what He wants me to do in this life in that way.  All the steps are there in the Bible for me to follow.  If I just do those in that way, then it will all work out.

We tend to think that logic and emotion are two separate things, that they don’t coincide.  People might say “if you could just put aside your emotions for a second we could talk rationally.”  But we can’t seem to do that.  Some emotions are very logical.  Things like loving your child , being attached to your family, and disliking evil are all emotions but are very logical for survival.  They all make sense on both on a personal level and on the grander scale of humanity.  This is all because this is how God designed us.  In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus said “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  God created us with both emotions and reasoning and He intended that we should use both.  We're not meant to be robots reasoning things through without feelings.  We are instead meant to be so much more.

If we read Luke 10:25-37, we see the story of the Good Samaritan.  The priest and the temple assistant (Levite), men of great wisdom and learning of the day, walked on by.  The Samaritan felt compassion for the man who was attacked and so he helped him.  It was his emotion that made the logical action of helping the man seem so natural.  So remember that God wants us to listen to our hearts.  He wants us to know that feeling the Spirit within ourselves and sharing that joy is just as important as knowing what it means to be a Christian and living the life.  Share your joy today and watch as everything else just seems to make sense.