Love and Emotions

As I’ve grown older, I realize how much I love people. I’m not being sentimental—I love people more every day. I find myself… filled… with love… constantly. Just burning with it, really.

Like the other day I was waiting for a parking spot—the person was backing out, taking their time, can’t be too safe you know! I had my blinker on, waiting patiently. All of a sudden, someone scooped in from the other direction and took the spot before the person got out of my way. Man. I loved both those people so much. I took a deep breath. Or two. Didn’t honk. Didn’t stare a hole through their face. Didn’t yell at them or wave any hand gestures. I had to love them with all my heart. It took everything I had.

I think at this point in my life, I love people more than I ever have.

The other day I posted something on social media about the Ascension and some atheist know-it-all commented on my post to let me know, and I quote, “That never happened.” Love that guy, you know?! So much love. I had to reach deep in my heart to find the kindness not to blast him with a torrent of sarcastic self-righteousness. I didn’t respond at all.

Wherever I go these days, it seems like opportunities to pour out love are never-ending. 

Even at home, with people I like—a lot, people I have unlimited affection for—there is no end to the love that… bubbles up. They want things to go a certain way, they want to do this when I want to do that, they roll their eyes, or pout, or act disrespectful, or irritating, or try to make me late, or don’t put something away, or leave a mess, or mess with my plans. You feeling it? There’s a lot of love at our house. Enough to go around for all of us. They love me, too. Because everytime any of us respond to these kind of things with kindness, or don’t insist on our own way, or answer a sharp word with gentleness—any time we refrain from pushing back and show each other self-control instead. That’s love. 

I feel like I love people a lot more than I used to. 

I need you to go with me on this. You can’t learn something that you think you already know. What I’m going to say today is an attempt to rewire your understanding of what love actually is. You’ve been told your whole life that love is how you feel about someone or something. That’s not what love is. Not according to God. Not according to the One who says He is love. Not according to the One who said the most important commandment is to Love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength—and to love your neighbor as yourself. Throughout the Bible, all the wisdom of God, all the commands of God come down to one word. Love. We might want to understand what He means by it. Don’t you think? 

So, try to stay with me.

Love is not attraction. Love is not affection.

When we promise to love someone, we’re not promising to have certain feelings about them. It doesn’t make sense to command someone to feel a certain way.

Attraction and affection are wonderful things. If we’re attracted to someone, it’s easy to love them. If we have a lot of affection for someone—if we really like them—it’s practically effortless to love them.

You getting it? 

If I ever tell you I love you more than anyone I’ve ever met—now you understand. I’m struggling. Ha.

Love is not an emotion. Love is what we do with our emotions.

Attraction is a feeling. When our heart swells up with affection, that’s an emotion. 

So is lust. Anger. Fear. Sadness. Jealousy. Guilt. Shame. Loneliness. Envy. Those are all feelings—love is what we do with those feelings. Love is when we do the right thing in spite of how we’re feeling.

When a mother first gives birth to her baby, most of the time she is overwhelmed with joy and affection for the child. I understand sometimes there’s postpartum depression or other complications, but usually, like the Bible says in John 16:21,

“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a her baby has been born into the world."

Through the filter of motherly affection, she sees the most beautiful creature she has ever seen. No amount of crying, screaming, puking, filling diapers, or all the inconvenient features that come with a baby can put a damper on how she feels about that little thing. It’s so easy to love and care for the baby—even when she’s exhausted, out of her mind with sleep deprivation, hormones going bonkers. No mess is too messy. No scream is too blood-curdling. I mean, what sense does it make to run TOWARD that awful sound? That’s some brave love right there! No matter how selfish the little monster acts. No matter how much it thinks the entire universe revolves around its giant baby head. This is the magic love of motherhood. Because if God didn’t wire mom to mysteriously love that bundle of… um joy?... none of us would have lived to see our first birthday. Ha.

But it’s a limited time offer. Eventually that kid needs to stop acting like a baby. When they get older—if they keep on acting like a baby—that’s where love really has to kick in. That’s when it gets harder to be patient with our kids, harder to be kind—we have to listen to their complaints, we can’t just insist on our own way, or be irritable or resentful all the time. We have to love them, which means we have to find ways to be generous, gentle—we have to pray for God to help us have self-control. Those things are hard. They’re also from 1st Corinthians 13:4-7 and Galatians 5:22, 23. This is how God defines love.

According to God, love isn’t how we feel about someone, it’s what we do with our feelings. How we control ourselves. How we treat people. 

I’m not saying we can’t feel love. We feel it when we do it. Running isn’t an emotion but I certainly feel it when I run. Well, if I ran. Which I won’t. Ha. 

Look, I understand that when we tell someone we love them, we mean we have feelings for them. In English, we use the word “love” to mean we have the strongest feelings of affection, attraction, admiration—that’s fine. I’m not trying to ruin it when we say “I love you.” Ha. But I want us to think deeply about what we’re promising people when we say it. What is that love going to look like? God says if we love someone, we will treat them a certain way—not just feel a certain way.

Love & Emotion Let’s talk about emotions. We all have them. Something happens and we all have involuntary responses. We get frustrated, mad, sad, scared, excited, we laugh, we cry, we get embarrassed. We don’t have any control over how we react emotionally to all the things that happen in life. We’re just going along and BAM! We stub our soul on something and feel it. We have an emotion.

Having emotions is not wrong. It’s not sin to feel emotions. It all depends on what we do with them.

    Ephesians 4:26-27 says,

"Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil." 

You can replace the word “anger” with any emotion but anger is probably the most powerful and most destructive one we have. Anger is expensive. It costs relationships, jobs, property damage, trips to the E.R. and worst of all, a fortune in apology flowers.

Your emotions are like a remote control for how you’re going to act—don’t hand it to the devil.

James 1:19-20 says,

"Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God."

The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Nothing good comes from when we act out of anger. But we’re going to get mad. And it doesn’t do any good at all to pretend we’re not mad—denying our anger, suppressing our anger, causes all kinds of problems—stress, high blood pressure, ulcers. But speaking in anger, throwing a fit like a baby—that’s no good either, do it one too many times and it’ll get you fired or thrown in jail. So what are you supposed to do? 

“Be angry and don’t sin.”

I like to think of my anger as an internal alarm system—it lets me know something is going wrong. Like Spidey-Sense. I’ve learned to feel the first signs of anger and take a step back—see if I can tell where the heat is coming from. Is someone attacking me? Do I feel disrespected? Am I just getting mad because someone else is mad at me? Anger is contagious but, come on, that’s a dumb reason. 

There was this kid who was just the sweetest most of the time but every now and then he would lose his mind. He always felt bad about it later. It didn’t seem to make any sense. Turns out he had a weird banana allergy. Everytime he ate a banana he’d go into a rage at the slightest frustration. 

When you get mad, maybe you’re just hungry or stressed or tired. Listen to your Spidey-Sense, figure out what’s wrong. Don’t act like a monkey and go bananas on people—you don’t want to slip on your peelings. It’s Mother’s Day—I had to get a dad joke in.

Anger’s a big problem. I see it in our country, I see it in our church. Everything makes us mad—and that’s okay—feel your anger but don’t hurt people with it. Don’t let your feelings, your emotions, be anyone else’s problem. 

Proverbs 29:11 says,

"A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back."

This doesn't only apply to anger—it applies to all our emotions. Don’t blast people with them.

We used to say something like this to our kids all the time—maybe they were mad, or sad, or bored—they were feeling something and they were taking it out on everyone else. We’d say, “Hey, you’re feeling how you’re feeling, that’s okay, you can feel your feelings, but you can’t use them to control people or hurt people or annoy people for your amusement.” When they were little, we could tell them to go to their room until they could act like a human being. That technique stopped working the minute they discovered video games and anime. Now I just go to my room. Not really.

Love is what we do with our emotions. We can’t let our feelings be anyone else’s problem. Don’t make people watch what they say around you, don’t torture them with your mood, don’t push people away. Love people instead. Control yourself.

It works both ways. When we’re the moody one and when someone is blasting us with their attitude.

As believers in Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit working in our lives to help us love people. This is what the fruit of the Spirit means. When they throw their ugly emotions at us, our job is to not throw them back. Our job is to make peace. Our job is to love them.

Galatians 5:22 says,

"The fruit of the Spirit is love (and when you double-click on love, this is what we find inside) joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."

That’s how we love people. We take a deep breath, count to ten, don’t escalate the situation, and try to create joy, create peace. Blessed are the peacemakers, remember?! How do we do that? By being patient, kind—being good to them when they’re not being good to us. By walking in faithfulness, being gentle. All of this takes supernatural self-control. 

It’s not what we want to do. What we want to do is snap at them. Tell them to calm down. Tell them to stop feeling sorry for themselves. Get over it. We want to put them in their place. They get on a high horse so we get on a higher horse. They puff up their chest so we puff ours up bigger. They slap us in the face and we want to knock their block off. Escalate the conflict. Slam doors. Punch the wall. Or some of us just pout. Want to give up. Get defensive. Crawl inside ourselves and hide. Avoid that person for the rest of the day, or week, or life. We have all kinds of great ideas.

Jesus says to make peace. Create joy. Be kind. He says to love them. He even says He’ll help us if we trust Him. In John 14:27, Jesus says,

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

One of the things He’ll help us do is described in Proverbs 15:1 where it says, "A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger."

You’re going to have feelings. Emotions. It’s unavoidable, they just happen but don’t use them to hurt people. Don’t let your emotions drive. The Bible refers to the emotional center of a person as the heart. It also says the heart of man is deceitfully wicked, don’t trust it. Your heart is a punk. Your emotions are bullies. Don’t let other people’s emotions boss you around or be your problem and don’t make your emotions theirs—don’t bully people with your feelings. 

Psalm 4:4 says,

"Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent."

Sometimes the best thing to do is step away from a heated situation. Maybe the other person’s emotions are on fire, maybe you're on fire—but you’re not going to make it better by making it worse and trying to burn each other down.

Walk away. Get alone. Think about what has you upset. Pray about it. Talk to God. Pour your heart out to Him instead of the person you’re sideways with. Talk to a friend—someone you trust that you’re not upset with. When you get some perspective and you’re ready to make peace—when you’re ready to show them love—then try to reconcile. God wants  you to love them more than you feel like loving them. So just do it. Love them.

I didn’t say “like” them. God isn’t telling you how to feel about them—you might still be mad or hurt or whatever, that doesn’t have anything to do with it. He’s telling you how to treat them.

1 Peter 3:8-9 puts it like this,

"Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing."

Peter is calling us to have the mind of Christ. To cultivate tender hearts and humility toward each other. To lay down our lives, our preferences, our feelings, what we want—and serve each other. Love each other. It should look a lot like how a new mother loves her baby. 

That’s actually a pretty good test. Is the person who is giving you trouble acting like a big baby? Perfect, now you know exactly what to do. Love them. Are you acting like a big baby? Stop it. Pull up your diapers and stop making your emotions everyone else’s problem.

On Kim’s first Mother’s Day, our daughter Von was eight months old—we had some big plans to make the day special. We went to church, at the time we were going to a really pretty church in downtown Houston. Von was particularly fussy that morning and Kim spent the whole service with a crying baby in the nursery. We went to our favorite Indian restaurant for lunch and Von was teething and grumpy and decided Kim’s plate needed to be thrown on the floor. We never left a restaurant in those days without painting the carpet with something. After lunch we walked over to get coffee and I made a rookie dad mistake. It’s the one where you put the baby on your shoulders, ‘cause it’s fun, and you hold their little baby hands, pressing their little round baby belly right into the round back of your head—after lunch. Yeah. First, I felt the warmth on the top of my head—Von was always a silent puker—then I felt it running down the back of my head. I had a ponytail at the time. Kim got to help clean us both up using wet wipes and Starbucks napkins. I can still smell it. I can also smell the “all the way up the back” diaper explosion that happened next. Happy Mother’s Day.

And you know, one way to tell the story is that it was the worst first Mother’s Day ever. But it wasn’t. It was perfect. Taking care, cleaning up, feeding, comforting when they’re sad or mad or whatever—that’s what loving a baby is all about. It’s actually a pretty good picture of what love is all about. Not just a mother’s love but a father’s and a friend’s and every relationship we have in life. When people act like babies and give in to their emotions, our job is to love them anyway. And as much as we are able, to not allow our emotions to spill out all over other people.

It’s how God has promised to love you. No matter what kind of fit you’re throwing. No matter what the reason. He promises to be infinitely patient with you. You can rant and rage and cry and complain in your prayers—His kindness will lead you to repentance. Somewhere good. Every time. When you come to Him with your envy and petty jealousies of what other people have, when you’re angry and frustrated with their arrogance, or rudeness, or how they disrespect you—when you’re whining like a little brat at all the things that seem so unfair in your life—it doesn’t irritate Him. He trades your sorrows for joy. Jesus endured all these things and more—all the way to the cross—so He could make peace for you. That’s the ultimate picture of what it means to lay down your life for someone else. It’s definitely THE example of what it looks like to love in spite of your emotions. At Gethsemane Jesus felt all the heaviness. I’m sure He ran the gamut of anger, sorrow, anguish, dred, sadness—all the painful emotions when He was arrested, accused, betrayed, flogged, traded for Barabbas, questioned before Pilate, mocked by Herod, and rejected by His people. But He didn’t act according to those emotions. He took the path of love. 

Love is not attraction. Love is not affection. Love is what you do with your emotions, how you treat people. God promises to always take the path of love with you. Even when He has to love you more than anyone else.

Prayer

Help us to love the people in our lives. Help us to not make our emotions anyone else’s problem. To not try to control them or manipulate them with grumpiness, anger, sadness, pouting, or however we might feel.

We repent and are very sorry for all the times we’ve done this in the past. Help us to do better.

More importantly, help us know that we are not condemned for all those times we failed. You have forgiven us. Help us to let go of the shame and guilt we carry because of all those haunting memories. Forgive us all that is past, and help us to walk in the freedom of that forgiveness. AMEN