We can change our actions faster than we can change our feelings.
This is an easy lesson to understand, making it easy to teach, because we have all perhaps been there and done this at some point in our lifetime.
Picture the following scenario:
Two people are feuding, fussing and fighting or yelling, hollering screaming at one another – and the telephone rings. The person closest to the telephone answers calmly, “Hello.”
If you have done this you have proven this point.
First, there is nothing wrong with feelings. God gave us every feeling we are able to experience; but He did not give us feelings with which to think – He gave us a brain. However, God did not intend we exercise feeling-less thinking.
In the strictest sense of the word – love, as we see it, always has an action that can be accompanied with feelings. The prime illustration is the classic verse John 3:16: For God so loved (feelings) the world (i.e. all the people in it), that He gave (action) His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
Biblical Greek, however, does a better job defining the association of feelings and actions, I think, than our modern-day English. In the latter, we express our love toward everything from God, family and county to chocolate.
Five Greek words, in Scripture, encompasses the love/action spectrum:
- Epithumia: A strong desire of any kind – sometimes good sometimes bad. When used in a positive way it is translated desire. When used in a negative way it is translated as covet.
- Eros: The love, more than any other kind, carries with it the idea of romance.
- Storge: Could be described as a comfortable old shoe relationship comprised of natural affection and a sense o belonging as shared by parents and children or brothers and sisters.
- Phileo: This form of love cherishes and has tender affection for the beloved, but always expects a response. It is a love or relationship – comradeship, sharing, communication, friendship.
- Agape: The totally unselfish love that has the capacity to give and keep on giving without expecting in return.
“Of all the loves, agape is the one you can bring into a relationship immediately, because it is exercised as a choice of your will and has no dependence on feelings. It is a love of action not emotion. It focuses on what you do and say rather than how you feel,” according to Dr. Ed Wheat, M.D. in his book Love Life.
Again, You can change your actions faster than you can change your feelings.
Next time: Anger: Wanting Someone Else to Pay
