Feeling centered vs. God centered…
May 8th, 2010 by ljkim
The whole “center” metaphor is that whatever is in the center of a wheel doesn’t change/move, everything else moves to stay oriented toward the center. So when we are being “feeling-centered,” we’re making our feeling about something the absolute, and everything else has to change to work around it. Or when our lives are work-centered it means the demands of my job are non-negotiable, “I have to do this”, and everything else has to work around that. Being God centered means instead of asking God to change, I’m willing to change everything else to work around what God wants.
From an engineering point of view, to extend the metaphor, not everything can handle being at the center. Some things, if you put it at the center, will get wrecked. People who let their lives center on their feelings often find that they leave wrecked friendships, wrecked work relationship in their wake… Not to mention being unable to follow through on other things they’ve wanted… Why? Because feelings come and go, and they’re not strong enough to let them be central in your life.
But feelings are hard to change! That’s what most people who live “feeling centered” lives think. I think that’s being too optimistic. I think strong feelings are IMPOSSIBLE to change on our own. This is why it’s so easy to let your feelings take over. Psychological studies have found that even rational NT’s are often ruled by feelings, they just cover up for it better than the touchy-feely types.
So how can we live a God centered life instead of a Feeling centered one? First you have to know that you’re not able to always control how you feel about things – for example, I HATE getting up early! But I can’t let that feeling shape my life…I want to let God shape my life not my feeling about this… So what can I do? One, admit that this isn’t something I can change or control on my own. Two, decide to let God be my center; commit to this. And three, ask Him for help in changing the feeling part.
So for me…every time I’ve had to get up early for God and did this – I’ve been enormously blessed and helped… And I’m using that (dumb) example because it’s a simple and small feeling-centered problem… There are stronger feelings like bitterness, anger, jealousy – and God works on those too: when his people humble themselves, realize it’s something we can’t do on our own, and ask Him for help.
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