Up on the wall in my third grader’s classroom is the “word of the week”, visceral. The definition given to my daughter and her class mates is “characterized by or proceeding from instinct rather than intellect”. I’m not sure how a third grader grasps the understanding of this word, but it sure caught my attention. I’ve been thinking lately about our responses to things that happen in our daily lives. Sometimes those responses are led by emotion and other times by our minds. When hurtful events occur in our lives it is natural to respond with emotion, but often times that emotion can cause pain for someone else. When a child disobeys, a spouse disappoints or a friend neglects, we may feel justified in yelling (especially if we are tired) or inflicting pain in one way or another. We may in fact choose to wrongly believe that we couldn’t have responded in any other way. But the truth is that as soon as we make that conscience decision to engage our minds and let our intellect lead, the emotion we feel can be used for good and not for harm.
There may be a hundred factors that lead to someone responding with their emotions leading, but when a person is able to engage in self-control and respond thoughtfully, the potential for the infliction of pain is greatly diminished and the ability to bless others increases dramatically. Granted, we don’t always want to bless those that hurt us, but someone I know real well by the name of Jesus did this over and over again and He impacted the world for many generations to come.
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