Feel

Proverbs 4:23 - Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.


I wonder why it is that we, at times, feel so alone in the middle of where He is. Why is it that, at times, I stand in the middle of His love and everything feels foggy? Why do I/we have to feel Him at all? I mean, I know why I have to feel Him (I'm kind of an emotional guy) but why do we have to feel Him? For me, it doesn't seem real unless I feel it, unless it moves me to something. One could explain all they want using logic or whatever but it just seems boring - numbers, charts, graphs, rules...blah. But then, my heart is moved, shaken awake and I am alive again. Watching a sunset loses every ounce of its meaning, its magic if it is broken down into scientific formulas and reflected light. Sonnets, poems were not written because somebody discovered iambic pentameter. Poems flow from a cry of the heart. Women are not wooed because of some base mating instinct. Women are pursued because they exude a beauty that captivates. Soldiers don't throw themselves on to grenades, cops don't run into a gun battle because of some calculated survival of the fittest thing. Cops and soldiers do what they do out of love for their fellow soldier, their fellow man.It is no wonder that He came to speak to our hearts. Why would we follow someone who is merely efficient, who had a formula, a list of rules? Formulas are boring, efficiency can be cold and we all know what a list of rules can get you. I want to be moved! Jesus could have come as a conquering king, the military liberator the Jews were expecting. Instead, He came as a carpenter's son, a teacher, a rabbi. He taught love and forgiveness. He spoke in riddles that challenged people's hearts and minds and upset the apple cart of religion. He embraced the unlovely and hung out with fishermen, tax collectors and prostitutes. He came to set people free from an enslaving set of rules that were nothing more than equations for a version of salvation. He challenged people's ideas of what it meant to follow.Then, shattering everyone's concept of what a messiah should be, He allowed himself to die a horrible, tortured, ugly, excruciating death. You gotta know the disciples were thinking right about then...why did I believe this dude? Why did He move me so, make me believe, show me glimpses of freedom only to die now? And, just when despair was setting in, He changed the world forever and rose from the grave! Plug that into your formulas, your list of rules, your abacus..whatever. Put that kind of love into your pipe and smoke it...see if it doesn't change you.Why do I feel? Because no one can read His story and not be moved. No one can deny that Jesus changed the world...and I cannot deny how He has changed me!