Truth about feeling

… And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ …. (Philippians 1:9-10 NIV)

Submitted now for your consideration: Pamela, a loving wife, a nurturing mother, a prayerful Christian. This morning, her husband, Richard, left a tender note on the bathroom mirror, inviting Pamela to join him for lunch at their favorite restaurant.

Pamela eyes the clock throughout the morning, anticipating meeting her life-long love at 1 p.m. She’s excited and feeling extraordinarily loved by her husband, so she leaves for the restaurant early in order to buy Richard a small gift. She splurges more, buying two balloons, which float up from the ribbon wrapped around the present.

As she pays for the gift, she looks in her purse and notices she’s left her cell phone at home – again. No matter, it’s 12:30 and in a few short minutes she’ll be with Richard, giving him her undivided attention. Who needs a cell phone in moments like that?

Pamela arrives at the restaurant first and patiently waits for Richard to arrive. What she doesn’t yet know is that Richard has been in a horrible traffic accident and was pronounced dead on the scene at 12:24 – about the time Pamela was tying the balloons to the bow, buoyantly anticipating the approaching romantic rendezvous.

The point to this sorrowful snapshot is that our feelings don’t always reflect the truth. Pamela is soaring high on her feelings of love, even though her husband is already dead. The truth is bearing down on her, and it will immediately alter her feelings when it hits – but her feelings are not yet in line with the truth.

Imagine Pamela as she waits for her husband, and he does not arrive. She’s forgotten her cell phone, so she waits. After a while, she becomes annoyed; after 20 minutes, she’s irritated and hurt. Her feelings still do not line up with the truth.

After 40 minutes, she begins to worry. This just isn’t like Richard. Maybe something has happened. She asks to borrow the restaurant's phone, and she calls Richard’s office, but is transferred to his boss. He says, “Pamela, we’ve been trying to reach you. There’s been a terrible accident ….” The truth and Pamela’s feelings collide.(Walker 2008)

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Yes, indeed oftentimes the truth behind out feeling is some how doesn't define the truth. When a words spoken how do you interpret it? We always will perceive it in a way we want to believe or by our past experience and own perspective of understanding on that particular person but the truth behind the words we often ignored. These same goes with when we read the words of God or the above devotional article, we often choose what we want to hear and listen. Agape love is more than just sentimental gush... Eugene H. Peterson, whom always looking for an English way to make the biblical text relevant to the conditions of the people, the author of The Message bible translated Philippians 1:9-10 as below

So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of:
(Php 1:9-10)

If love just meant to be sentimental gush it's just too 'surface'... it have to be involve sacrifices and pain... the must know verse, "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. (Joh 3:16). By knowing is not enough but show the world how this verse had really changed you. Christ had shown us the utmost L.O.V.E , crucified on the cross for all of us, a so-called human since first Adam to the very current and many years to come.

- Walker, J. (2008). "The Truth about Feelings." Retrieved 15 Feb, 2008, from http://www.purposedrivenlife.com/en-US/FreeTools/devotional/archivedDevos/DevotionalArchive.htm.