God Does Not Have Our Emotions
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." — Isaiah 55:8
A Remarkable Statement
While praying about a particular person, a believer received a correction she never forgot. The substance of it was this:
"Don't make the mistake of thinking that I have the same weak emotions as you humans have. I have no weaknesses, and neither do I have the emotions you humans are so fond of attributing to me."
And then the verse:
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8–9)
Where We Get This Wrong
We are made in God's image, which gives us the capacity for the wide range of emotion we experience. But He never intended us to feel anything except love for Him — and therefore for others — and joy at being in His presence.
Everything else in our emotional range came about through the fall, and is therefore contaminated and distorted by sin.
Even our compassion is distorted.
That is the sentence that stops people, and it is worth examining, because it explains a great deal.
We try to keep people from hurting when hurting is the only thing that will bring them to the Lord and show them their need of a Savior.
We refuse to discipline our children because we do not want to upset them — and, being honest, because upsetting them creates difficulties for us.
We hesitate to share God's word because we are afraid of offending someone.
We imagine we can live satisfying our own desires and still receive reward in heaven.
We think this way because we assume God feels what we feel. He does not, and the assumption is the error.
The Sword, Not Peace
The same correction included this:
"You humans seek to keep peace amongst yourselves, while my Son declared: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother... And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." (Matthew 10:34–36)
And this, which should stop every one of us:
"It will not matter to me how many tears are shed or how much anguished pleading for mercy occurs — not one single person shall enter heaven except through my Son Jesus."
That is not cruelty. It is the fixed structure of reality, and no amount of grief will bend it. Which is precisely why the warning matters now, while it can still be acted on.
Point to Ponder
Even our compassion is distorted by sin. We keep people from hurting when hurting is the only thing that would bring them to God.
Verse to Remember
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." — Isaiah 55:9
Question to Consider
Where has my compassion actually been cowardice?
Today's Practice
Examine three areas where distorted compassion commonly operates.
Your witness. Who have you not spoken to about Christ because you were afraid of offending them or damaging the relationship? Write the names. Ask honestly: is this love, or is this self-protection wearing love's clothing?
Your children. Where have you failed to correct because correcting them upsets them — and creates work for you? Name the specific behavior you have been tolerating.
Your comfort. Where have you assumed that God feels about your compromise the way you feel about it — indulgently, understandingly, with a sense that it is not really so bad?
Then pray this deliberately: "Father, give me Your view of these situations rather than mine. Where my compassion has been cowardice, expose it. Where I have been managing people's feelings instead of loving them, forgive me."
Then act on one of the three this week.
Prayer
Father, I have made You in my own image and given You my emotions.
I have assumed You feel about sin the way I feel about it — that You find it regrettable but understandable. I have assumed that enough grief at the end would move You. It will not, and it should not.
Show me where my compassion has been distorted. Where I have kept people comfortable instead of telling them the truth. Where I have refused to correct my children because their distress inconveniences me. Where I have called my cowardice kindness.
Your ways are higher than mine and Your thoughts than mine. Bring my thinking up toward Yours rather than dragging You down toward mine.
And give me the courage to speak this week to someone I have been protecting from the truth. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
We assume God feels what we feel. Almost everything we get wrong about Him starts there.