Colored People
In a department store a young husband was minding the baby while his wife was making a purchase. The infant was wailing, but the father seemed quite unperturbed as he quietly said, ?Easy now, Charlie,? he murmured, ?keep your temper.? A woman passing by remarked, ?I must congratulate you! You seem to know just how to speak to a baby.? ?Baby nothing!? came the reply. ?MY name is Charlie!?
Negative emotions are often the greatest challenge to our self-control. Surely you?ve had the experience of some emotion welling like a pregnant volcano, as if the containers of body and soul would burst, unleashing the monster that morphs from situation to situation always pointing it?s finger at your will, demanding to be allowed expression. Though often we may pride ourselves on our ability to ?keep our head,? we are often betrayed by the tell-tale signs of our emotional colors. Perhaps you?ve heard someone say, ?he was green with envy.? Maybe you?ve been so mad, you were ?red as a beet.? Ever had ?the blues? in the aftermath of disappointment? Or, maybe you?ve known the jitters of fear and you retreated to a safer situation. Let?s just say you were ?yella.?
Various emotions challenge our self-control, prevailing upon our will to be allowed to run our lives until they run their course. Proverbs 16:32 says ?he that ruleth his spirit [is better than] than he that taketh a city.? Amen! Envy can create such a disdain for others, anger can demand such dramatic expression, fear can speak so loudly to my feet, depression can sing so sweet a lullaby to my motivation, it would be far easier to go into politics! Entire cities can be persuaded quicker than feelings!
Few things cause more frequent regret that words and deeds said and done out of emotional reaction. All of us shake our heads from time to time in remembrance of something we said or did that we hardly thought about before it was over and damage was done. Someone was hurt, money was spent, time was lost, or an opportunity was passed, and it was too late too quickly. And why? Some emotion had its way.
In spite of any raging tide of emotion, the Lord urges to be ?self-controlled in all things? (1 Cor 9:25). I found that the word ?all? there in the Greek literally means ?all.? No kidding. In every situation, with every kind of person, we are to learn to force our emotions to be limited to only their colors. Negative emotions aren?t bad or evil in themselves, as a matter of fact they are perfectly natural and quite universal. However, actions and words are always to be under the control of a Holy Spirit influenced will. Negative emotions, then, ultimately are a challenge to Christ?s lordship, begging the question of who will control what we say and do.
Now consider light. ?God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.? It is interesting that white light is actually made up of all the colors of the light spectrum in balanced expression. Sounds much like Jesus doesn?t it? Jesus?; emotions were very present, yet always balanced by His will (which, in turn, was always in submission to the will of the Father). When provoked by the Pharisees, He confronted them with a controlled rebuke. When sorrow broke forth in weeping at the death of Lazarus, Jesus still chose to act according to God?s schedule for Him. While He felt the agony of dread in Gethsemane, He prayed, ?Thy will be done.? When betrayed by one of his own disciples, with a deliberate calm he submitted to his accusers.
?Emotional pain is normal,? writes Dr. Wayne McDill, ?the alarm is designed to get your attention, to send you a message about a threat in some area of your life.? We must remember what Jesus understood while on this earth, everything that would threaten us must be sifted through the fingers of God?s grace; He is in control. Has someone hurt you? Vengeance is the Lord?s. Has life got you down? God has ?plans for a hope and a future.? Afraid? ?In times I am afraid, I will trust in you.? Having a problem with temper? In a moment of anger, surrender the situation to the Spirit of the Lord. (And count to ten in the name of Jesus!)
Praise God, one day we will be like our Lord, clothed in robes washed WHITE in the blood of the Lamb. Balance. Perspective. Perfected Christlikeness. Negative emotions will be banished. The only emotions we will experience will be those such as contentment, love, excitement, awe, and joy! And they will be given full expression. But until then, our earthly goal should be to be more like Jesus our Lord and that desire will manifest itself in what we do with those emotions that demand we react instead of respond.
1 McDill, Wayne. The Message in Your Emotions. (Broadman and Holman: Nahsville, TN. 1996), p. 5.
