Question: what’s the relationship between the head and the heart?  We humans have emotions... but we also have the ability to reason.  The Lord made us with a head to think but also with a heart to love.  So how do we put those two things together?

I ask that question because lately the subject of emotions has been on my mind somewhat.  Maybe that seems an odd thing to say – because I am doing some reasoning about my emotions; I’m using my head to think about my heart.

You may wonder what brought this on.  Well, within the space of one year I had two hospitalisations with cardiac episodes.  In both cases an angiogram led to having a stent inserted in an artery of the heart – and I’m using the word heart now, not as the seat of our emotions, but as the blood pump in our bodies.

I look back on both episodes with some amazement at the calmness with which I was able to cope with this rather serious hiccup in my health.  Was that (as I suspect) a special blessing of God, sustaining me through these cardiac episodes, or was it because I tend to be more rational than emotional by nature?  Certainly I have met people for whom a cardiac episode is a huge emotional roller-coaster.

I decided to hunt through the Bible to see if it had anything to say about ‘feelings’.  And, yes, it did!  Well, okay, that depends a little on which English translation of the Bible you choose to read.  The most common English versions in use today only mention ‘feelings’ three or four times.

Even then it’s often debateable whether the word ‘feeling’ should even be used.  Let me give you an example.  In the book of Job we have Job debating the problem of suffering with some of his friends.  On one occasion Job talks about the actions of God and he says, “God may let the mighty rest in a feeling of security, but his eyes are on their ways.”  However it seems to me that Job was not talking so much about “feelings” of security as actual security itself – because another English Bible reads Job’s words this way: “God gives the mighty security, and they are supported, but his eyes are on their ways.”

Of course it would be foolish of me to deny the importance of feelings.  As I said at the beginning, God made us with a head and a heart, we have emotions but also the ability to reason.  It’s interesting too that when Jesus summed up the Law of God He reminded us in the summary of the law that we are to love God with both our hearts and our minds.

Of course all of this is not just an interesting question about the balance between heart and head, emotions and reason in my own life.  It’s also a very pertinent question for all of us and for our society at large.  In fact, I would suggest that our feelings are rather a big deal in our modern society.

My concern at this point is that it’s all too easy to get things out of kilter.  Let me give you some examples.  Dale Carnegie, who wrote books and gave lectures in the 1980s to help people to be more successful, said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”  American poet and essayist Audre Lorde (who died 1992) made this claim about our emotions: “Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.”  Really...?

Well, it seems to me that the Bible offers us a better perspective.  Consider what many would regard as the supreme emotion: love.  If love is just a feeling then how on earth could we ever obey Jesus command to love our enemies?  It’s hard for me to love someone whom I do not like.

The apostle Paul helps us here.  In 1Corintians 13 he defines love for us by linking it to 15 different qualities.  Interestingly most of those qualities are not feelings but attitudes and actions.  For example he tells us that love is kind.  But kindness is not an emotion... it’s an attitude closely tied to our actions.

It would seem then from the Bible’s perspective what you think determines what you feel.  Christian author and speaker David Jeremiah put it this way: Feelings are the fruit, not the root, of love.  That’s worth thinking about.

John Westendorp