Articles
When Feelings Rule
In June a pickup truck careened into a gay pride parade killing one man and injuring others. Initially, Ft. Lauderdale mayor Dean Trantalis, who is openly gay, denounced the act as deliberate and premeditated, “a terrorist attack on the LGBT community.” After additional investigation, Trantalis “walked back” his comments: “I regret the fact that I said it was a terrorist attack, because we found out it was not. But I don’t regret my feelings, I don’t regret that I felt terror … It terrorized me and all around me … I feared it could be intentional based on what I saw from mere feet away.”
Mayor Trantalis, even after reflecting on the facts, says, “I don’t regret that I felt terror.” He does not say, “My feelings were misplaced; I erroneously accused an innocent man of being a terrorist when he was, in fact, a supporter of LGBT rights and a fellow parade participant.” This is how the world looks to those who have abandoned objective truth and facts in favor of their feelings. This is not a harmless outlook; it is a warped, potentially fatal skewing of reality that compromises sound judgment and hinders effective resolution of problems.
Feelings are powerful mental reactions to real or imagined stimuli. Webster’s defines emotion as: “A conscious mental reaction (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.” The key term here is “subjectively experienced.” We may feel a powerful reaction to a perception of what is true even when it isn’t. Our information may be factually wrong, but that doesn’t matter to our emotions. We react on the basis of assumptions, as did the mayor, resulting in undue distress, impugned motives, false accusations, misguided policies and other groundless and damaging conclusions.
Feelings that contradict the facts create a distorted view of the world. We may assume that others are our enemies when they are not. Conversely, we may be slow to see the truth about someone because we like them. But worst of all, our feelings may lead us to draw false conclusions about God and/or His will because we project those feelings onto Him.
Here are some examples of misguided feelings from the life of David:
David’s rage toward Nabal. David had lived as a fugitive for some time. He endured the loss of his wife and loss of status; he was betrayed by his countrymen; he felt responsible for the murder of the priests of Nob. But Nabal’s ingratitude for his protection of his flocks and his insults against David as a runaway slave finally pushed David over the edge (1 Sam 25). A man who has surrendered to rage is hard to turn, but Abigail accomplished it by humble and calm reason. This allowed David to realign his feelings with the will of God (25:24-31).
David’s despair of Saul’s pursuit. David eventually reached a point of despair for his life: “David said in his heart, ‘Now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines …’” (1 Sam 27:1). It is interesting that Scripture doesn’t overtly fault David for this, but the subsequent narrative clearly documents the serious trouble it caused. Further, this is the second time he mistakenly turned to the Philistines for refuge (cf. 1 Sam 21:10-15). In a moment of weakness David had allowed circumstances to blind him to God’s provision and care, something he had come to depend on and later writes eloquently about in the psalms.
David’s desire to build the temple. What a noble thought: “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells inside tent curtains” (2 Sam 7:2). God even commends David’s desire to honor Him: “You did well that it was in your heart” (1 Kgs 8:18). However, David’s feelings did not align with the will of God: “Nevertheless, you shall not build the house, but your son … shall build the house for My name” (8:19). Right feelings, wrong plan, wrong man.
David’s lust for Bathsheba and cover up. David’s darkest and saddest chapter comes when he is the most successful and secure in his kingdom. This story (2 Sam 12) illustrates the power of our emotions, in this case outright lust for another man’s wife. David gets so many things wrong in this fiasco: disrespect for Abigail (and his other wives); disregard for his loyal warrior Uriah; defilement of Bathsheba; blindness toward Nathan’s introspective parable. The human heart can be shockingly selfish, and when under the influence of evil it will go to great lengths to rationalize its desires and cover its tracks.
David's exaggerated grief over Absalom. All of David’s chickens came home to roost in the rebellion of his son Absalom. David was now too old to be useful in the war for his throne (2 Sam 18:2-3), so Joab prosecutes the battle. David’s parental sympathies got in the way when David instructed his army not to harm Absalom (18:5). But when he learns that Absalom had been killed, his unbridled grief completely takes over and he wails over the loss of his son (18:33-19:4). This time it is Joab who shakes David, if rudely, out of his funk which demoralized and shamed those who risked their lives to save David’s throne. Today we are fond of saying, “there is no wrong way to grieve,” but the truth is that excessive, inconsolable grief over the dead can kill the spirit and damage the living. Grief must be defined and balanced by God’s perspectives on life and death.
In spite of the above episodes, David is extolled as a man after God’s own heart; a prophet and psalmist who reveals the depth of his love for and trust in God. He courageously fought the Philistine giant in defense of God’s honor. He magnanimously spared Saul’s life twice when he could easily have slain him. When he ascended his throne he united his countrymen who had rejected him and ushered in an era of peace and prosperity. Yet even a man like this wrestled with his emotions and struggled to moderate and subject them to the will of God.
It is no different with us. We must learn to be self-aware and not blunder through life blind to our faults. We must proactively rein in our emotions. We must seek truth and not make up our own narrative to justify our feelings. Lazy capitulation to our emotions nullifies sound judgment.
