Jesus Felt.

Jesus felt. He felt sorrow for the widow, knelt at his feet. Frustration for the Sanhedrin gathered to devour. He knelt with compassion next to children and softly spoke to the woman at the well. He welled with sorrow for Lazarus and cried aloud for others. He gulped and engulfed himself in a sea of tears and weeping the night before his death. He clung to and hugged his friends. He also saw them walk away. He felt the nearness of his mother, but also the stab of betrayal. Jesus was surrounded in friendships of twelve to hundreds, but alone in the desert, of Judah and the soul. Jesus felt the laughter of Peter casting his net, the assurance of doing his Father's work, the anger of seeing injustices and the defiling of the temple, and the beauty of a lame man walking. Every emotion, on every scale, the Son of God felt. It is his humanness that connects me to him. It is his humanness that makes him understand.

I know people that seem to rarely feel. Or at least have tried so hard to bury their waves of emotion that it seems a straight line penetrates the monitor of their life. I look at them flex my brows. At times I catch myself frustrated with them. With their plaster face and pride that nothing phases them.

And other times, I feel jealously, that they are released from the ups and downs. Still others, I feel concern. What is it we achieve by not feeling? We achieve the control, the hiding behind our walls, the professional distance. But we do not achieve true connection, true breath of intimacy -with people or with God. It is God who creates and who takes the roller coasters of our heart. It is he who forms them, who works in them, who works through them.

Somedays I hate my feelings. Somedays I am frustrated that I feel so much at all. But other days I am glad. Other days I allow myself to feel, and experience every feeling of feeling.

Because if you don't feel, then you don't stand up against injustice. You don't burn towards excellence. You don't reach out to touch the hurting in the way that meets them in their need. You don't strive towards being all you can. You don't stand in the gap with courage, strength, and dignity. You, instead, simply be. You exists, but little more. One blown and tossed by the wind. One who watches wrong happens and doesn't have the passion, the guts, the gumption, or the conviction to stand in the way. One who sees people exuberant with laughter, but stands watching from the outside.

So I'll take my feelings. I'll wrestle with them, I'll roll with them, I'll try to unravel them. I'll take them. I will be frustrated with them at times, stand up to them in others, and still hid them too when selfishness prevails. But I'll take the burning, the passion, the anger, the hurt, the frustration, the deep love, the commitment, the conviction, the animation, the hope, the worship.

I'll take my feelings. Because Jesus felt. In his humanness, he felt.