If I had your writing talents, I think I would write "You Are Not a Machine".
So much of our thinking is predominated by an unnatural view of the world and ourselves. Bavinck says "the spritual life is an organic life". Amen!
The whole pray on it and see if you feel peace thing seems more like a check engine light than a relationship. What do we make of Christ saying that the Father will prune fruitful branches in John 15:2? Pruning doesn't sound all that peaceful if I am the one getting pruned. I am sure Treebeard would agree.
You know when we will feel true, unadulterated, undiluted, infinitely secure peace? When King Jesus returns! Come Lord Jesus.
Why do I "covet my conscious" (as a friend has said) or feel like I need to "have peace first" before I act when, as you said, the "reality is that I am always already at peace with God, because he has made peace with me when his Son died on the cross for my sins?" Ok... the nuance is real, we really should lack peace at times and not act, but that's not the case I find for myself. As an person who want's to "be approved" or "not upset anyone" and therefore "wimps out" and "lacks courage to speak up" quite a bit; not having "peace" is very often used as a "cop out" to inaction in my own life. If I am anxious, nervous, or don't have the right words, when I know I am called to speak, I can sometimes blame it on my "lack of peace," when I know I should act/speak. I have pleaded many times for this thorn to be taken from me and I am still at it. I am so grateful He loves me
Out of curiosity, do you ever wonder if maybe there’s something historically recent about “feelings” themselves? I don’t mean humans didn’t have feelings until recently. But it seems like the writings about feelings is more recent. I know that in economics, happiness as a goal doesn’t start until Bentham. He equated utility originally with happiness (a weird version of it though bc he said it could measured in real units, like length or pounds, that he called “utils” and therefore laid the foundation for a protoscientific theory of utilitarianism where you could move happiness around like coins or dirt). If that’s true, it does make you wonder if theologians would’ve been in the conversation too.
The other thing: utility gradually became something you brought into your life by goods and services that could only be bought using mostly labor income, which most people were lacking. Which again when you think about it, if things cause happiness, and they are related to emotions, and faith and emotions (peace) get connected in complex largely never-explicitly-stated ways, it could be even these definitions of peace are themselves like utility in that they might not be what even they originally were.
This is an interesting question. The psalmists are all about emotion, but are they conveying "feelings"? Semantically it feels (pun always intended) that emotion is different than feeling. Have we been trained to conflate the two, bolstered by the whole listen-to-your-heart nonsense of the last couple of generations?
In the meantime, we need to prayer for discerning between God-given conviction and satanic-driven guilt when we feel bad about not being at peace. It is, after all, a peace that surpasses understanding.
Super-helpful. So much in this one to mull.
If I had your writing talents, I think I would write "You Are Not a Machine".
So much of our thinking is predominated by an unnatural view of the world and ourselves. Bavinck says "the spritual life is an organic life". Amen!
The whole pray on it and see if you feel peace thing seems more like a check engine light than a relationship. What do we make of Christ saying that the Father will prune fruitful branches in John 15:2? Pruning doesn't sound all that peaceful if I am the one getting pruned. I am sure Treebeard would agree.
You know when we will feel true, unadulterated, undiluted, infinitely secure peace? When King Jesus returns! Come Lord Jesus.
Why do I "covet my conscious" (as a friend has said) or feel like I need to "have peace first" before I act when, as you said, the "reality is that I am always already at peace with God, because he has made peace with me when his Son died on the cross for my sins?" Ok... the nuance is real, we really should lack peace at times and not act, but that's not the case I find for myself. As an person who want's to "be approved" or "not upset anyone" and therefore "wimps out" and "lacks courage to speak up" quite a bit; not having "peace" is very often used as a "cop out" to inaction in my own life. If I am anxious, nervous, or don't have the right words, when I know I am called to speak, I can sometimes blame it on my "lack of peace," when I know I should act/speak. I have pleaded many times for this thorn to be taken from me and I am still at it. I am so grateful He loves me
Out of curiosity, do you ever wonder if maybe there’s something historically recent about “feelings” themselves? I don’t mean humans didn’t have feelings until recently. But it seems like the writings about feelings is more recent. I know that in economics, happiness as a goal doesn’t start until Bentham. He equated utility originally with happiness (a weird version of it though bc he said it could measured in real units, like length or pounds, that he called “utils” and therefore laid the foundation for a protoscientific theory of utilitarianism where you could move happiness around like coins or dirt). If that’s true, it does make you wonder if theologians would’ve been in the conversation too.
The other thing: utility gradually became something you brought into your life by goods and services that could only be bought using mostly labor income, which most people were lacking. Which again when you think about it, if things cause happiness, and they are related to emotions, and faith and emotions (peace) get connected in complex largely never-explicitly-stated ways, it could be even these definitions of peace are themselves like utility in that they might not be what even they originally were.
This is an interesting question. The psalmists are all about emotion, but are they conveying "feelings"? Semantically it feels (pun always intended) that emotion is different than feeling. Have we been trained to conflate the two, bolstered by the whole listen-to-your-heart nonsense of the last couple of generations?
In the meantime, we need to prayer for discerning between God-given conviction and satanic-driven guilt when we feel bad about not being at peace. It is, after all, a peace that surpasses understanding.