Emotions Were Not Meant to Sustain Us
From Pastor Kevin King
Jesus taught His disciples about The Parable of The Sower in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The parable characterizes four different soils and how those soils react when seed falls on them. The seed is the Word of God and the soils translate to four different heart conditions and how those heart conditions react and behave when the Word of God falls on them.
One of the soil types is called stony ground. This type of soil is rocky and has no depth of earth, meaning it is not of sufficient depth for a seed to properly germinate and root. The seed, however, could still sprout up. Parables have a natural part and a spiritual part. Jesus explains the natural part for the stony ground as follows. The seed that falls on this soil springs up immediately because it does not have depth of earth. The seed would normally root sufficiently deep in the soil first and then grow up. But with no depth of earth, the seed simply springs right up. Jesus continues to explain that when the sun comes up, the little plant is scorched and withers away, also because it has no root. The lack of root means the plant has no means to be nourished and so what life it does have is burnt out of it.
Jesus explains the spiritual part as well. When the Word of God falls on a stony heart, the person immediately receives it with gladness. These kind of people get excited and emotional when they hear the Word of God. Their emotion is quick fruit and will endure until persecution and affliction arise to kill the Word. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing sinful about being emotional and excited when you hear a good Word. But that’s all these people have is emotion and excitement. Because they have no depth of heart, the Word cannot properly root in them, and so their emotion is all the fruit they bear. They don’t develop real conviction and belief from the Word. They only have emotion. But this emotion is short lived. Persecutions and afflictions will come as surely and as often as the sun comes up. They come solely to abort the Word that was sown in these people's heart. Persecutions and afflictions act as the scorching heat of that sun coming up. They apply intense pressure and can only be endured by a strong rooted belief. To expound a bit redundantly, the sun is cyclical and so will rise and set again and again. Likewise, persecution and afflictions are cyclical. They will come and go.
People that have no depth of heart can only hope to endure pressure with emotions. This is futile as the pressure will wither emotion just like heat withers the infant plant. Our emotions were not designed to sustain us through trials and trouble. Only faith, or a rooted belief, can sustain the fruit in our lives. So don’t be alarmed or condemned if your emotions wilt under pressure and can’t take the heat. They weren’t meant for that. Only faith was. Hence, we are instructed to walk by faith and not by sight.