Tuesday, July 22, 2014

What It Means to Be Moved


Emotions get a bad rap too much in this life. If we are criticised for not controlling them enough, we are self-berating and condemnatory. The weakness value in our manifest emotions always seems to get top billing when the strength value is undeniably what we live life for.
Not everyone is a feeler, per se, but every living being can be touched emotionally.
When we are moved from the soles of our feet, through sensory extensions to every epithelial nerve ending, God touches us, and we tingle radiantly all over. We are emotional. Our chins quiver involuntarily. Tears well up and seep over the dams of our lower eye lids. We begin to look away – the inspiration of self-protection and shame for having become vulnerable. But, in the safety of bold vulnerability, we are encouraged to stay there – in these emotions that have moved us.
When music moves us we are connected by the lyric or the melody or the beat – or their combination – and such art takes us places in our mind, heart, and soul.
It means a great deal to be moved. We should never shun the experience.
The paradox of having been moved is that we surrender control over ourselves for the moment just so we may experience some height or depth unusual to our experience.
Life is poor when we are somewhat cut off to the height or depth of emotional experience, but with maturity of faith we are graced with less and less of those experiences that throw us about. God is weening us from the need to crave being touched. But there will always be experiences of life that will move us.
To be moved is the height of human experience – a pleasure far too high to ever be contrived; but it never stops many of us from trying.
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One thing I have found to be true is the more I find time to reflect, the more God touches me in my senses. Experiences of life can easily be swept over, but as we reflect we enhance the felt experience and God can be heard to speak through insight.
We live to be moved. Harnessing the inspiring emotions, especially those that rock us from the soles of our feet, is the height we love to experience, even though it might implicate pain.
The value of being moved emotionally cannot be understated as we seek to connect profound truth to our feelings.
If we can let go and trust God at our depth, our Lord can use our emotional experiences to lift us to the heights.
© 2014 S. J. Wickham.
Photo Credit: 8past8

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