[Disclaimer: I'm not aiming this at anyone. Promise. I started thinking about this particular subject because of another person, but what I've written below is basically just my musings and it's not intended to be anything more than something interesting to read and discuss. However, if you feel like God is speaking to you through what I say, I just want to make it clear that it's not me and I'm not doing it on purpose. :-P Also, these are MY OPINIONS. Some of the stuff I say is fact, but the conclusions I draw from it are my own, and I don't mean to offend anyone!]
Something that has been at the forefront of my mind recently has been emotions. Specifically, love, but emotions in general. People are emotional beings. And sometimes those emotions hurt. So some of us try to deal with the pain and move on, and others try to remove the cause. "Love hurts," they rationalize, "so why should I love?" I guess on the surface it makes sense, but as I was contemplating the idea, it started to seem less and less logical. Of course, I'm all for suppressing--actually, I think controlling would be a better word there--I'm all for controlling certain emotions: anger, for example, excessive self-pity, pride, etc. There are certainly emotions that I could do without completely, like greed and lust. But almost all of these, in moderation and in the right application, are useful emotions. Pride in a job well-done, as long as you don't let it go to your head, and desire to provide the best that you can for your family, if you say greed and desire are similar, and righteous anger, which is, obviously, righteous, and that amazing, beautiful 'lust' that a man has for his wife, which isn't really lust, but it sort of is, only it's really more like a different kind of lust, which just goes to show that it's the excess and misuse of these emotions that really gets you in trouble. [That is probably the longest sentence I've ever written, and for some reason it reminds me of C. S. Lewis...] Back to my original point: Love hurts, so why should I love? There are several responses that I've come up with, so that's what I'm going to write about.
