World of Emotions & Feelings

The world of our emotions is a formative world, affecting everything we do. We spend much of our lives in the world of our feelings, or our ego. Indeed, the emotive world is a battleground, on which the war of moods, critical to our well-being and our well-being and our very survival, is fought. It is a war that is waged every day. We may surrender to negativity and agree in the battle or choose to enter the fight and engage each negative emotion with a positive response. It is all a matter of choice. Our greatest challenge is to gird up the loins of our mind (in the words of 1 Peter 1:13) and charge into combat. We are often beset by a fight-or-flight mentality; sometimes we must choose the flight.
One of the greatest works of literature ever produced deals with a man who loses everything he has and is plunged into despair. No biblical character is a better expression of this battleground than the venerable Job, life is symbolic of suffering. Job curses the day of his birth (everything was taken from him on his birthday). He raises his complaint to G-d as he sits in sackcloth and ashes and wallows in self-pity. Satan is depicted simply as one of the angelic messengers in the divine court. He is dispatched by G-d, but given no power in his own right. Satan is far too dominant and independent a character to be tolerated.
As the book begins, Job is ill and nearing the end of his life, he gathers his seven sons and three daughters and relates the fantastic tale of his earlier years. His Hebrew name was Jobab, before it was changed by divine decree to Job. Job was attacked as part of a bet, a wager between G-d and Satan, to see whether a righteous man who is unjustly afflicted with retain his steadfast faith in G-d (1:1-12; 2:1-6). A plague is unleashed and devastates on his livestock, and his children, then his friends (there are allies as well as adversaries). Through the tragedy, Job holds fast to his faith in G-d, and did not blaspheme. After all the L-rd gives and the L-rd takes away, trusting in His reasoning. Teaching us that when facing the most intractable enemy of all, ourselves, in the world of feeling, the admonition is simple and direct: HOLD FAST!
We know very little about Job’s wife, Sitis, – only that she taunts him with the words, “bless G-d and die.” While Job sits on his dung heap, immovable defiant, she becomes a maidservant to bring bread to her afflicted spouse. When self-pity threatens to consume us – when we are at the brink of despair – the compassion, the caring, and the action of others often help us regain our perspective. Realizing that we are loved by others makes all the difference in the world of feeling.
Job, responds like the fighter he is, he has never surrendered his soul. far from letting his emotions defeat him, he summons his feelings, and commands his anger. Reveals he is one who has taken charge of his emotions and has wielded them as a weapon against the foe. Job has learned that there is a time to mourn and a time to engage the enemy. We may have lost everything, but why should we be alienated from G-d, who is our greatest wealth. Physical action is not always required, but fortitude of soul is, physical illness and/or pain. To wrestle emotionally is to feel a physical sickness. To live is to wrestle, and to wrestle is to live.
You must never surrender to despair. You must never give up. You must be steadfast, for if ever you despair, if ever you abandon yourself, you also abandon G-d. You may feel like Job, or like Abraham’s son Isaac, about to be slaughtered, but remember that your emotions are a battleground. You can and you must prevail. The deepest pit into which one may fall:
HOLD FAST, AND KEEP THE FAITH!