"I Hate Feelings, I Wish I was a Bagel."

“I hate feelings. I wish I was a bagel.” When my friend posted that Facebook status, I laughed - as perhaps some of you did. But then I cringed. I cringed because it resonated with me deeply. I had been there.

I had been there… consumed with infatuation. My thoughts had run circles around boys I Iiked, overthinking every word carelessly tossed in my direction. My heart had bounced to my throat with every glance, plummeted to my stomach with every doubt, and galloped ten times faster with every thought of a crush. I hated my feelings. 

I had been there… devastated by rejection. I had poured out my feelings, like perfume on the concrete at someone’s feet. I had heard the all-too-familiar, “I don’t see you like that…” time after time. I had watched a crush gaze at another girl like she caused the sun to shine.  I hated my feelings. 

But recently, one line in a Timothy Keller sermon hit me like a train, “Our feelings are a reflection of God’s feelings.” God experiences emotion, and since we are created in His image, we experience emotion too.  If you somehow read the Bible and missed the fact that God experiences deep, overwhelming emotion… there’s really no nice way to put it...  you weren’t paying attention. 

God has been there… consumed with infatuation. His love for us stretches wider than a Kansas sky (Psalm 108:4). His thoughts on us number more than the grains on a Florida beach (Psalm 139:18). The joy we bring him gave him strength to endure each whip lashing his back, each thorn crushing his skull, each gulp filling his lungs with blood (Hebrew 12:2). His love for us is better than the most beautifully written rom-com, better than life itself (Psalm 63:3). 

God has been there… devastated by rejection. From Adam eating the apple, to the Israelites shaping gold statues, to Jesus hanging naked on a cross, God has been rejected. We talk of morality and sin, righteousness and unrighteousness, in callous legal terms - as though our mistakes only affect ourselves and other people. But underneath it all lies the bleeding heart of a rejected God. 

So if my feelings point me back to my Creator, I should not wish I was a bagel. I’m still not crazy about being trapped in a whirlwind of infatuation or tracing the still-bleeding scars of rejection… but I can sort through each emotion in His presence. He can refocus me. He can heal me. Each emotion can remind me of His emotion toward me. At the end of it all, my prayer will be, “God, since you experience emotion just like me, let me bring you utmost delight.”