"In the beginning was a thinking, feeling God"

"Knowing that our heavenly Father has spoken to us, it is imperative that we understand what He has to say to us about our feelings of joy and pain. The first thing we notice is that He describes Himself as a God who feels. This all-transcending mystery, which we cannot fully grasp, is time and again reiterated in His Word.

In the very first instance that we come upon the strongest of emotions attributed to God we read the words, "The Lord was grieved...and his heart was filled with pain" (Gen 6:6). Such intensity of feeling seems almost a humanization of God, does it not? We need to be very, very cautious that we do not take the terms in their human limitations and with connotations of finitude, but we will be equally in error to deem these words as purely metaphorical with no real emotion behind them. We are intended to grieve over evil and to rejoice over good.

Somehow, we have been taught to believe that God is so distant that there is nothing in His feelings that bears any analogy to ours. When the Bible tells us that "In the beginning was the Word," it goes on to say, "and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14 KJV). When we trust a person we are told that we can take that person at his or her word. Here in the Gospel of John we see that God's word and being are identical. The incarnate Son of God felt, wept, laughed, and hoped. In the beginning was a thinking, feeling God.

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But this is where the first very difficult lesson comes. As godlike in their origin as feelings are, we must also learn to put them in perspective and protect ourselves from the glorification of feelings as the final affirmation of truth. God feels with perfect knowledge, and His feeling is in conformity with what is true. He does not act because He feels as much as He acts because He KNOWS. Nothing is so important to the nature of a word as the truth, and truth is the property of propositions not feelings. Feelings are never described as true or false. Feelings may be legitimate or illegitimate, understandable or incomprehensible, but they are not true or false. This is where we often get bogged down, longing for feelings when indeed those very feelings could be the most seductive force to take us away from the truth."

- Ravi Zacharias, Cries of the Heart