Can you find evidence for that in the Bible?
God cares about us, deeply, perfectly, wonderfully, but He steps on our emotional toes all the time.
It's for a good purpose, of course, but where do we all get the idea that we ought to be so careful of feelings? Shouldn't we just grow up?
That's one of the meanings behind the scripture lesson we'll be using at Crossroads this coming Sunday (Nov. 11) in the story of the "Rich Young Man" in Mark 10:17-22. At the end of the story the young man is shocked at what Jesus has said to him (that he should sell his property and give to the poor) and "goes away" because he is so sad.
The thing is this, Jesus loved this young man, it says in verse 21 that the reason Jesus gave him this hard word was because He, Jesus, loved that man. He hurt his feelings because he loved him. Wow.
The Word of God often intends to hurt our feelings so we will change. As Jesus' followers, we will get our feelings hurt, and, as his disciples, we will speak his Word and hurt others' feelings too. It seems to me that is unavoidable?
Challenge me if you think I'm wrong.
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I'm not sure "hurt his feelings" is the right way to put it. Rather, God speaks the truth and sometimes the truth makes us sad or we don't like it. God isn't afraid to speak the truth, even if it means we feel bad about it. I don't believe that God ever tries to HURT us.
ReplyDeleteGod's intent is always love but we often don't "feel" like it is. God doesn't try to hurt us but it does "feel" like it sometimes. We often don't want to pay attention to everything God says because many times our emotions say "no" to God's Word even before we get a chance to examine closely the intent of the Lord behind what seems to be a hard Word.
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