God is good, God is great!

This has been a week of emotional highs and lows.  Emotions are a total enigma to me in many ways.  At times I HATE them.  I HATE that they cloud my judgement.  I HATE that they are at times affected by hormones, over which I have no control.  I HATE that they can make me feel so sad/pathetic/helpless/distraught sometimes that the real truth of a situation slips through my grasp. 

With that said - they aren't all bad, those pesky emotions.  I LOVE that tears instantly form in my eyes and spill out liberally when I see someone baptized - even total strangers.  I LOVE that the exact same thing happens when I am with a friend as they bring a baby into the world.  I LOVE that I can look at my husband or my son and be so filled with joy and pride just at the sight of them and what they represent to me.  I LOVE that a ride on a roller coaster still produces equal parts THRILL and TERROR in me.  I LOVE the excitement and heart palpatations that come with doing something I was born to do - knowing I am fulfilling my purpose - making a difference for eternity. 

Knowing that I am created in God's image and that I have emotions - makes me dwell on the fact that my God is an emotional God.  He doesn't sit on a throne in the heavens and look down unfeelingly at the world below.  At various times in the Bible He is said to be grieved (Psalm 78:40), angry (Deuteronomy 1:37), pleased (1 Kings 3:10), joyful (Zephaniah 3:17), and moved by pity (Judges 2:18).  I CAN RELATE!!! I am made in God's image and I have felt all of these things as well.  I love that we have that common ground.  At times when God seems impersonal to me (usually when I haven't spent the time with Him that I should as His child and servant), it is so comforting to remember that He FEELS deeply - as do I. 

Equally as comforting to me is the fact that just as God feels deeply and loves purely and is filled with holy passion - he is also unchanging.  THIS IS HUGE TO ME.  It is great to have a God who feels strong emotions, but if He were capricious, or if he allowed those emotions to sway Him, to make Him lose control, to keep Him from exercising sound judgement - what kind of God would He be?  Not one I could worship.  Not one I could trust to help me sort out my own emotions.  So, as delighted as I am that my God can relate to my emotional nature, I am equally grateful that in the end he says - "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9).