Articles
Unresolved Emotions (Part 2)
Last week we explored the emotional vulnerability of actors as they seek to keep their feelings within reach of their conscious mind. When the director says, “Action!” the actors must be able to cry, laugh, hate, lust, covet or do anything their characters are supposed to do. Our point is not to understand actors per se; rather, it is to explore why God tells us to resolve things and move past destructive thoughts and emotions.
I believe that Constantin Stanislavski, the Russian “father” of modern acting and creator of the “Stanislavski Method,” did not understand the power of sinful thought -- and neither do those who adopt his “system” of complete transformation into the characters they are portraying. They say, “I am just acting,” but in reality they are thinking, feeling and doing things that are sinful and thus break down resistance.
It is analogous to the disaster that befell New Orleans during hurricane Katrina. When a city lies below sea level, it is vital to maintain the levees that keep the water at bay. If the levees lie neglected, the city is vulnerable though it is not apparent until the storm hits. Likewise, we should build spiritual levees against sin because we live below “sin level.” It is all around us; it is relentless; it brings with it all manner of disease, corruption and ruin just as did the floodwaters that descended upon New Orleans.
Sin is a process that begins with an urge or desire (James 1:14). As physical creatures in a physical world, many such desires make themselves felt every day. We can react to normal, natural desires in multiple ways: ignore, contemplate, delay or fulfill them lawfully or unlawfully.
A plan of action leading to a sinful outcome begins in our mind. We are not suddenly overwhelmed by urges that forcibly neutralize our rationality, take control of our bodies and make us, like robots, do unseemly things (except in the case of the mentally defective who, due to their incapacity, are not culpable before God). Rather, we are cooperative in our own spiritual demise, and that cooperation begins with failing to recognize, acknowledge and alter sinful urges at the root.
We tend to make two mistakes here on opposite ends of the spectrum. The first mistake is the feeling of overwhelming guilt when inappropriate thoughts course through our consciousness. For example, suppose someone speaks to us in a condescending or even profane way, and our first inclination is to angrily denounce them. Or we are confronted unexpectedly about some failure and, caught off guard, our first urge is to lie.
At that point, we are tempted to respond sinfully, but temptation is not sin. “Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin” (James 1:15). If we do not arrest our feelings and rein in our thoughts at the point of temptation, then we are in danger of acting sinfully.
In the above scenarios, if I gather myself and speak calmly, or if I decide to tell the truth and accept the consequences, desire did not give birth to sin. This very process happens to each of us multiple times every day. A sinful possibility is presented; we are urged to respond; we think better of it and choose a different path. We cannot keep temptation from occurring, but we are expected to develop the godliness and self-control to avoid bringing it to fruition.
The second mistake is to indulge our desires and contemplate the sinful possibilities -- all the while telling ourselves that we are OK so long as we do not act on what we are thinking. But what we are actually doing is plowing furrows of habitual thought in our consciousness, digging holes in the levee of resistance to sin. Inwardly, we are polluted, sinful in inclination; all we lack is opportunity -- which Satan will gladly supply when our resistance is at its lowest ebb.
This is when we find ourselves numbly saying, “I can’t believe I did that; I don’t know how it happened. That’s not really me.” But it is us. When we sin, our true selves have come to the fore and we have done what we prepared ourselves to accept. Actors do this deliberately in an attempt to keep themselves open to any and all displays of thought and emotion for a role. God-fearing people do it, too. We’re just sometimes naïve about the process that is leading us to sin step by step.
So this is where the battle needs to be fought -- at the level of our desires, our thinking, our intent of heart. We are far too weak to beat Satan at his own game, especially when we give him such a head start.
