With that being said, lets talk about sex.
Just kidding. However, now that I have your attention I do want to talk about a couple stereotypical differences between guys and girls. You see the youth group from my home church has been talking about sex and relationships and this week the topic was titled "Who a Guy Is."
My youth pastor has been drawing half of his research from a sex study done by the University of Chicago and they listed these differences between guys and girls. I want to preface this by saying these are all stereotypical.
- Girls are Relational while Guys are Physical
- Girls are Verbal while Guys are Visual
- Girls prefer Romance while Guys prefer Action
- Girls like Chivalry and Guys like Buddies--> i.e. you're not a princess you're a friend
- Girls tend to feel their emotions while Guys think their emotions
- Girls like experiences and Guys want to be experienced
Look at this list and soak it in. For a lot of people this might be hard pill to swallow because it boils down people to a simple creatures. Personally, I think God has uniquely created us as relational beings and we have a little bit of both sides in all of us....some people just let one side dominate. Now....I must admit some of these things irked me a little bit. For example, I can not be attracted to a girl if she has a sucktastic personality. So for me, the physical must come hand and hand with the relational.
However, the one thing on this list that I do not relate to on the list is guys thinking their emotions. This was explained to me as guys think they are supposed to be mad and don't really show or actually feel upset. Well....this is my captain obvious statement of the year...I have a tendency to wear my emotions on my sleeve. If I'm ticked you're gonna know it, If I am excited you're gonna know it.
So for the past couple weeks I have been on a slight roller coaster of emotion. I have days where it's great, I have days (like today) where I don't feel the need to get out of bed, and then sometimes (Wednesday) where I feel both of those feelings in the same day.
This brings me to my quandary that I am writing this blog post about. There are certain God given emotions that we are supposed to acknowledge and work through. Even if they are negative emotions like anger there is something to be said about experiencing, feeling, and giving those emotions to God. With all of this being said, there is a verse that has been sticking out to me lately and it comes from the Old Testament.
After they escaped from Egypt the Israelites are wondering around trying to get to the promise land. God, being all knowing, knew that he could not take them straight there or else they would face war from the Philistines and might panic and flee back to Egypt.
Instead he lead them and gave them "a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night" to never leave his people. However, Exodus 14:14 is the verse that keeps echoing in my head.
The verse says this...
"The Lord will fight for you;
you need only to be still."
Still?
When I hear the word still I think of a little kid being scolded for acting up. This usually comes with sitting in a corner indian style, or even going so drastic as forcing a kid to sit on his hands. However, God is trying to go a little further with the idea of being still than just my gut reaction. Some of it I understand, and some of it, I do not.
For instance, I understand the application of not worrying about the future because not only is the future in the Lord's hands, He has the best possible plans for my life. But what I do not understand is how this is supposed to affect my emotions. Is it? Am I supposed to ignore the frustration I have been having with life? When I get super excited and anxious for something coming up am I supposed to reel-it-in?
I don't think either of these are correct. I think what I am trying to discover is the happy medium I am calling still emotion. Learning to acknowledge the emotions I am feeling but still be able to be still before the Lord and let Him fight for me. Let Him do all the work he is going to do, knowing that He has the best plans.
Still Emotion? What once sounded like a confusing oxymoron sounds like a pretty cool idea right now.
