Journal Entry - Emotion and Faith
Reading: Esther 3-8, Luke 18
Things that made me go hmmmm….
Esther 7….Esther didn’t ask her big request until she had the king all liquored up. What would we say today about a woman who liquored up her husband and asked him to wack her enemy who just happened to be his XO? Devious? I think of one of those James Bond black leather clad femme fatales. But Esther is a heroine, and Jews have a feast in honor of her heroism. It’s easy to justify it because it’s in the Bible and it’s the Jews that she saved. But isn’t that kinda situational ethics, the ends justify the means? Idk.
Esther 7:4 – I’m not an Imperial Wizard of the KKK or anything, but their view of slavery wasn’t like ours. I’m not in favor of slavery of any kind. But it fascinates me when I read the Bible and see the obvious and major differences in ethics and morals between their culture and ours.
Emotions and faith – Mordecai and Esther were scared to death, but they did the right thing anyway. That’s faith. Faith is not necessarily tied to our emotion. Faith is obedience to rightness. It’s doing the right thing no matter how you feel about it, no matter what it might cost you personally, no matter how it makes you look in front of others (even those in your faith community). Faith is prophetic. Mordecai stood up at the king’s gate when Haman passed and refused to bow like all the other people (fellow Jews included). In the face of his fear he stood for what was right. For days kind, well-intentioned people tried to talk him out of it but he kept standing. I’m sure he wondered why no other Jews followed his lead.
I’m sure he felt very alone and wondered if he was doing the right thing or just being too anal. I’m sure he felt that when the genocide decree was issued and he went into the streets of Susan in sackcloth and ashes, mourning I’m sure at least partly regretting his decision. I wonder if he heard John Maxwell’s maxim in his head, “If you think you’re leading and nobody is following then you’re just taking a walk.”. Hmmm…, sounds good, but not true. Love ya John, but you got that one wrong. Sometimes you lead and nobody follows, but you’re still a leader. Sometimes it costs you and it seems that there is no justice, but you do e what’s right anyway. And sometimes you pay dearly for it. But you’re still a leader.
And Esther. She was skerred too. Mordecai had to apply some pretty heavy pressure to her, manipulated her even, to get her to do the right thing. She knew she could die if she did what he asked. But she overcame her fear and did the right thing.
Emotion is a fickle friend. Emotion played a huge part in the story. The fear of Mordecai and Esther and the Jewish people. The anger born of arrogance of Haman. The drunken, irrational, impetuous rage and lust of Ahasuerus. Haman’s frantic begging for his life. The emotion was leveraged to accomplish what was right. But the emotion left to itself is destructive. Faith brings stability to emotion.
Too often I couple faith and feeling. I know, I know…everybody says they’re not the same. Yeah, yeah, whatever. But as a Pentecostal that’s hard to separate. So much of Pentecostalism is tied to what we feel and experience. Thus when what I feel and experience is at odds with what is faithful it’s a struggle. Oftentimes we question the faith factor because we don’t feel faithful, and we haven’t been faithful recently. We hold our past against ourselves. God isn’t concerned as much about our past faithlessness as he is with our right now faithfulness. He’s the king of mulligans. Every day can be Groundhog Day with God. Heb 11 is full of people who didn’t feel faithful, yet it says their faith never wavered. Faith is the victory of our belief in Godness over our faith in humanness. It’s behaving according to what we don’t see (or feel) over what we see (and feel).
Luke 18 – I preached on this recently. The story of the Pharisee and the Publican and the little kids and the rich ruler. I see an underlying theme about humility in these chapters. Jesus keeps coming back to it over and over. He wanted people to know and live in proper perspective, knowing our place. If we know our place we can then begin to comprehend grace and start to scratch the surface of appreciation for his mercy and kindness to us. If we want to understand and live in the graceful world of Paul and David, et al then we must understand and live in humility. The door to humility is the understanding of who God is and who we are not.
The Pharisee was proud of his legalism, the publican knew he was a bottom feeder. Children know they’re helpless, they know they’re weak, and expect help and provision. The ruler dude was young, rich, and in a position of prestige and influence. He was all that and a bag of chips, and he knew it. To the Jews of that day a rich man was viewed as someone with special favor from God. In such a dominantly religious society it was this prestige that carried more weight than the riches really. Everybody thought he was blessed and favored by Yahweh! Who would want to give that up? Being a ‘nobody’ and being physically vulnerable in a violent Roman world was a high price to ask. You can hardly blame the guy for going away sorrowful. He did all the right religious things, but he wasn’t willing to give up his reputation and his physical security. These were his insulation from insignificance and hunger. But Yahweh wasn’t his Lord, he lacked humility rooted in faith.
Jesus wants us to give up everything and be willing to sacrifice it all for him. Idk why. He just does. Discipleship is grounded in humility and faith. Humility is understanding our place in relation to God. Faith is making ourselves vulnerable to him, putting ourselves at risk for what He says is right. That’s frightening. Frankly, it scares the crap out of me when I think about it. No wonder it’s a narrow path and few are they that find it. Perhaps ignorance is indeed bliss.
Prayer: Lord, help me to live in humble faithfulness.
