Blog with Matthew

Dr. David and a Story about Spiritual Gifts

Many years ago while hanging out with friends I met a very interesting Christian.  He told me he had the spiritual gift of understanding fear.  My immediate reaction was to ask about the other super powers he had, but I held my tongue and asked him to describe this gift.  He explained that he had the ability to sense things that were dangerous and should be feared or avoided in the Christian’s life. 
“Very unique gift”, I stated. 

I could have ignored this whole interaction, yet I pursued and explained that I had not heard of anyone else with this gift.  He proclaimed that it was real and attempted to describe how the spiritual power worked.

God used this unusual interaction to spur me on to study the gifts in the church.  Although there is no exhaustive or complete listing of gifts in the Bible, I poured over the scripture and read scholars on the subject, and became aware of many exciting and powerful things God gifts His people with.
One of the more powerful examples of gifts comes from 2 Timothy 1:7 which states that God did not give a spirit of fear; but of power, of love, and good judgment.  The Bible provides many examples of Christ filling people with abilities that go beyond themselves, thank God he does.  These gifts are particularly comforting and empowering during trying times like Timothy was in, and we are currently experiencing.

What I especially like about this passage is that Paul describes three distinct things God’s Spirit provides for the Christian:

1.    The Spirit provides us with power.  This power helps us overcome obstacles from our broken world, our sinful tendencies and our enemy.

2.    The Spirit provides the ability to emotionally connect with others, described as love.  Although love can be faked - and can be robotic - I believe this passage reminds us that God’s emotive connections are fresh and charged by the power of the Holy Spirit.  How else can someone love and even die for people who hate him – as Jesus did?

3.    The Spirit provides sound judgment, or the ability to calmly reason through a problem.  God has provided us with the ability to think clearly despite confusion and chaos found in our world.

Although I still wonder about the special gift described by my spirited friend, I know that God does empower us to do great things.  I have also realized that if God can make a donkey talk why not provide a special spiritual gift just for us, to meet a particular need at a particular time.
What do you think?

Emotions and Feelings

Mike asks a great question this week: “When I reached the 7th blog in your book I was shocked to read the part that says that emotions and feelings are different. When I read through the chapter I see your point and I agree that they differ but there are some things in which I cannot pin point the whether they are feelings or emotions, I am really confused when it comes to this matter. Things like love, I know that love has a feeling and it has an emotion. There are times where we feel loved and when it is really love and I can’t really see when they differ. Things like laughter, is laughter the emotion or simply the feeling we get from being joyful?”

Wow, that is a lot to think about, Mike.  My major point is that emotions are about our thoughts, our minds, our thinking process.  They are not based or centered in our body or nerves as many early psychologists taught.  See Faithful Feelings for a review of the history of this.  If emotions were based in our body, we could never know the difference between being sick because of the flu and being sick out of being nervous – for example.  The attachment to thinking is what makes the nervous emotional.

We could also look at it like the classic question, “What came first, the chicken or the egg.”  We affirm, the thinking – conscious or unconscious - came first.  Anything else is logically impossible – again see Faithful Feelings.  Feelings, in a strict sense, is what we feel in our bodies and these come after the emotion, are caused by the emotion.  So we laugh at something because we THINK it is funny, we feel butterflies because we THINK something or someone is lovable.  Emotions produce physical feelings in out bodies much of the time – sometimes they do not but most of the time they do.  Yes, sometimes you need to think, “hmm, do I have this stomach thing because of that extra piece of cheesecake or because I am about the propose to my girl?”  If we think about it a bit and give it some time, usually we can figure that out without too much trouble.

Hope that helps Mike, keep pondering these things so you can become emotional mature!

Warehouse Club Shopping

I can say in one word what led us to warehouse club shopping - diapers.  Even with one, but even more so with two, diapers can be a big drain on the family budget and our answer was to buy in bulk.  We are through that stage now, but have retained our membership - especially as a Costco has just moved in a mile from our house. 

There is both an art and a science to buying at a warehouse club and I felt inspired to share. 

The Over-buy: I have done this more than once.  A great example is buying q-tips.  I once bought these at the club and they lasted like three years. They may cost like .001 more each at Target but do you really want a three year supply?

The Time Savings: Sometimes you buy in bulk just to save time - it does not matter about the cost saving all that much, but it is nice not to need to remember to buy something at another store 3X more often.  A good example of this is the crackers multi-box pack.  We do not eat crackers all that much, but when you need them they are always on hand because you have the five boxes in a box pack.  So, you never need to think of getting crackers at the grocery store.

The Cost of Money: An important issue in buying at the warehouse club is the cost of money.  Do you save money if you save 3% on a years worth of razor blades or could you earn more invested in the stock market - OK not the stock market, how about a CD?

The Cost Savings: Enough said, stuff is usually cheaper at the warehouse club.

The Forgot You Had it Buy: I did this recently.  We refill our dish washing liquid from a giant warehouse bottle into an antique bottle by the sink.  I thought we needed more - NOT.  Now I have a 14 month supply of two jumbo bottles under the sink.

The Silly Factor: You see something, you buy it and you really never needed it.  If you do that at a warehouse club you have probably tested this at a much bigger level than needed.  Ouch!

Now let's think we are in that TV series "Numbers" and do an algorithm, factoring everything above into making an informed buying choice.  Can you do that for me?

Totally impossible, right?  Now I am trying to make a practical application, or even a spiritual application.  Not coming up with anything.  Perhaps, we should say that some stuff is just too complex to get right all the time and you just have to do your best!

How do you feel ... ? What a question!

How do you Feel?  How many times in a day do you get asked that question?  I wear several “hats”; I am a woman (just celebrated my jubilee year), a wife, a mother, an employee as a project manager for a Fortune 250 Company in Florida, a mentor, a mentee, a counselor (Reg. Intern), a bird watcher and gardener, a runner who can’t run anymore due to injuries, a daughter, a sister, a friend and a follower of Christ.  In each of those roles at any given time I have multiple hats on, yet one is dominant at the moment of inquiry. 

When asked that question, “How do you feel?” my immediate inclination is to respond from the dominant “hat”.  As a mom, my response will likely be related to the child or other relative asking.  As a PM, my response may come from the level of “stress” and unreported activities of that day.  As a follower of Christ … wow. I get stopped right there. How do I feel … sometimes I feel really joyful, happy, peaceful, confident, calm, silly.  And sometimes I feel stressed, sad, angry, frustrated, humiliated.  And how do I handle that as a “follower of Christ”. 

The other day a co-worker came up to me as I was completing a presentation, hanging up the phone from a team member and a meeting reminder was flashing on my computer .  He just poked his head in my cubicle to say “how are you doing?”  “How are you today?” … in essence “How do you feel?”  My immediate inclination was to “bite his head off”; and then he smiled as I was gathering my composure.  I was immediately changed, because of his smile.

Most of my co-workers know that I am a “Christ-ian”; others’ interpret a known Christian’s behavior all the time.  So how does a human, follower of Christ handle those not so Christ-like moments?  I can share with you what I did … and on this occasion I did better than I have done in the past.  And the reason I did better was because he was Christ-like to me first.  He smiled. 

I took a breath, asked him into my cubicle, shared that I was expected at a meeting and trying to complete a presentation all at the same time.  We laughed about our work load and then exchanged quick remarks about being thankful for our jobs.  He shared his update; I thanked him and then arrived 5 minutes late (yet, the first one to the room) for the meeting.

We don’t always have the grace to receive a smile that inevitably softens our first-flash emotions; so what can we do to create a buffer, a cue, a reminder that when we are feeling stressed, angry, frustrated we need to still react with wisdom and love? How do we use the energy from that emotion positively? 

FEEL has some great suggestions, the Bible does too.   I recommend taking a long slow, intentional breath.  Then consider gratitude for the person or the stressor … we rarely get “better” unless we are challenged or made uncomfortable.  With gratitude or compassion for the stressor we begin to stretch toward feeling like Christ might have on many occasions.  When Jesus was burnt out, exhausted, needed rest he still put others first.  He was most emotionally driven by others needs, not his own.  

“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.” Mark 6: 34.

How do you feel?  Would love to hear from you...Deb

Introductions ...

Hi FEEL Friends.  I have not been on site to blog since the Holidays.  And spring is springing, here in Florida anyway.  Time never ceases to amaze me; its course is constant and steady and always flies by.  So to accommodate, kick ourselves and get back on track; Matthew, Laura, David and I have pledged to do better at staying in touch with you and with each other.  We have been working hard in this time (as you can see Matthew has been consistently blogging and working with Africa, David has been working with his students and traveling, I have been adjusting schedules and shifting hats from Project Manager to Counselor, Laura has been holding the entire group together), and due to this hard work we are ready to Introduce to you many new, revised, features and aspects of FEEL. 

The newsletter will be coming to you on a quarterly basis by way of email;

Blogging on the FEEL site (www.faithfulfeelings.com) will be occurring regularly by the FEEL team (Matthew Elliott, David Lawson, Laura Elliott, and Deb Banister-Hazama);

The website has been updated, revised and is easier to navigate;

Resources are available on site (checkout the Faces of FEEL tool);  http://faithfulfeelings.com/pdf/faces-of-feeling.pdf

You can see our calendar of events as they come up, shop for the Feel family of books look up helpful tools, and ask your questions to our blog faculty;

Matthew and David are open to scheduling seminars (small and large) to work with churches, home groups, staff and communities;

Soon to come are additional books, small group materials and even counseling support materials.

We are available to respond to your comments, questions, feelings, words about FEEL, about feelings, and about being an emotional child of God … so let us know “How do you feel” …