Emotions pt 1 | What were our emotions originally designed to be
Emotions. We all have them. We were designed with them.
God gave them to us in the very beginning. But what did he plan for our emotions to be? Let's explore that today. Recently, I began to think about emotions.
I think about them often because we are all feeling some kind of emotion every single day, whether it's good or bad, or a mixture of both. And I began to wonder, what exactly did the very first evidence of emotions come to be in the Bible? Also, I think it warrants, once we look at those first emotions, that those emotions should be the emotions that we aspire to have. And once Adam and Eve were removed from the garden, what emotions did they have then? And how do we get back to having the emotions from the garden? So first of all, they only had good emotions.
We know that. But let's read, um, let's start in Genesis 1. Now, let me encourage you, as always, to read everything in its full context. I am skipping around for time's sake, although I may be reading a little more than normal today, because I want you to get a fuller picture here.
And I know sometimes when I begin to read a scripture, you think, now where, what does this have to do with it? But it always goes somewhere, and it ties together. So right now, I am reading from the Amplified Bible, Genesis 1, and I am on 20, verse 26.
God said, let us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, make mankind in our image, after our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame beasts, and over all the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth.
Verse 27. So God created man in his own image, in the image and likeness of God. He created him male and female.
He created them. Now, then we skip over here to Genesis 2, 1. Then the Lord formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life. The man became a living being, and the Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden, which means delight.
And there he put the man whom he had formed, framed, and constituted. Let me stop for just a moment there. Often when we visualize Genesis and the creation, we get a picture in our head of the Garden of Eden, and that God created Adam and Eve within the garden.
But he created all of creation. He created it lush and green. He created it beautiful.
He created it perfect, all of it, the entire thing. Then he planted a special garden just for Adam and Eve, after he had created Adam. So let's read that again, thinking about that.
Then the Lord formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils. And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden. And there he put the man whom he had formed.
I think that's really special. I know this isn't necessarily on the path of emotions, but if we are truly created in the likeness and image of God, which we just read, that compassion, that love that he had for mankind, first of all, the pattern he used was himself. The very best pattern that he had to give.
So he created Adam and Eve off of the pattern of himself. Everything about him, of man, was patterned after God. So his emotions, here we go, we're talking about emotions finally, his emotions were in Adam and Eve.
His love for Adam is displayed when here he's created the entire world, beautiful, wonderful, lush. And now he's taken and he's created a very special garden just for Adam and Eve. I think that is one of the most overlooked things.
When we talk about God, we say, oh yes, God loves us in the famous John 3, 16 verse, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Yes, that is absolutely outstanding. But from the very beginning, God never had ulterior motives.
God created man because he wanted man. He loved man from the very beginning. So as soon as he created him, he said, this gorgeous creation that I've made isn't good enough.
We have to have something really special. It would be like, you know, having a house with a beautiful yard, and then all of a sudden you come along and say, okay, right here in this back corner, I'm going to make something really spectacular. And so that's what he did.
And he put Adam and Eve there. And that kind of love is all-encompassing. Stumbling over my words there, sorry.
But that kind of love is a love that we can relate to maybe more than giving away our son. I can't hardly wrap my head around that one. That one's too far outside of my wheelhouse.
I have two sons, and I have many grandsons and great-grandsons. So to try to wrap my head around that is difficult. I know it's big.
I know it's huge. I know it's far beyond anything I could do. But I can wrap my head around loving one of my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren.
I can wrap my head around wanting to create something super special just for them. A place just for them to live in. It was their home, and it was the best of the best.
