Control Is The Goal Series

John Powell, whose books have now sold over 11 million, begins his book The Christian

Vision with the request that we run a short home made movie on the screen of our minds.

Imagine that you have come home on a dark night and to your horror you see a long snake on

your front lawn. Your heart begins to pound wildly and the adrenaline starts pumping into your blood

stream. You quickly grab a garden hoe and in your frenzy you hack the wreathing snake into

pieces. Satisfied with your heroic deed you go inside and try to settle your nerves with a warm

drink. Later, lying in bed you still see the wriggling form on your front lawn.

The next morning you return to the scene of the slaying and discover you have chapped your

garden hose into a dozen pieces. It was a garden hose, but now it is green macaroni. Last night it

was a snake. It was always a hose, of course, but when you thought it was a snake it aroused your

emotion of fear and you attacked it like a foe with deadly force. The point is, our emotions are

created by our perceptions. They are caused by what we think, and the way we think. Emotions

are only as authentic as our grasp of reality. If we misunderstand or misconstrue reality, we will

have motions that are unrealistic. We will all agree that attacking a garden hose with a hoe is an

over reaction. The whole man is out of order. The mind is thinking wrong. The emotions are

motivating wrong, and the will is choosing wrong behavior. This is assuming that you need one

long hose and not a dozen real short ones.

What we need to realize is that though emotions are vitally important in our lives, they are not

infallible. Dr. James Dobson has written a book titled Emotions: Can We Trust Them? His answer

is no we can't. They are not reliable guides because they can be stimulated by so many variables

and, therefore, they lack stability. Not only can drugs affect your emotions, but the internal

chemistry in your body can make radical differences in them. The emotions are too subjective.

They can be aroused and you can be made to feel very strong about something that has no basis in

reality. He gives some illustrations out of his own life.

He tells of the high school where the football team consistently lost to their arch rival in a

nearby community. It was getting depressing and embarrassing. Finally a wealthy oil producer

decided to change things. He offered each boy on the team and each coach a new Ford if they

could defeat their bitter rivals in the next game. The team went wild with excitement, and for the

next 7 days they ate, drank, and breathed football. The entire school was caught up in the spirit of

ecstasy. Finally, the big night came, and you never saw a more excited team rush to the field. But

they were demolished 38 to zero. All the whoop-de-do could not compensate for their lack of

discipline and practice.

Dobson points out that the Jesus movement of the 1960's did not last because it was too

emotion oriented. These youth were highly emotional, but had little theological and Biblical

understanding. The result was many of them were soon caught up in various cults and sects.

Emotions are just not enough. Then he tells of his good friend Steve Smith who was with a

company of soldiers in Vietnam. Their first night out they were terrified as the sun went down and

they sat in their fox holes on a hill. At about midnight guns began to blaze away on one side of the

mountain and soon all of the soldiers sere firing frantically and throwing hand grenades into the

darkness. The battle raged through the night. Finally the sun came up and they sent out men for a

body count. Not one enemy soldier was found. This whole company had fought furiously through

the night an enemy who was not even there. The emotions had stirred up this battle and not the

enemy.

His final illustration is of his mother and father who lived in Los Angeles in 1967 when the

Charles Manson murders took place. Everyone was on edge and one night they heard an intruder

in their house. They listened as they breathed shallowly and then another sound caused them to

leap out of bed in the dark and head for the door. Each had their own plan of action. His mother's

strategy was to put her foot up against the door and throw her weight into keeping the intruder out.

His father'' strategy was to throw the door open and confront the intruder head on. When he pulled