Does God have Feelings?

Does God have Feelings?

Eileen Renders

Luke 23:34  As Jesus hung from the Cross with thorns in His head, and His flesh pierced, and with His wrists nailed to a Cross, His persecutors robbed Him of His garments and cast lots for them. His suffering was for our sins, and in that moment, He showed compassion and mercy as He said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

We, as Catholic adults and mothers, will also feel the pain of being ignored by our adult children, and know that we, too, must forgive. Forgiveness, however, unfortunately, does not resolve the pain. Is our God, Christ our Savior, the one who gave life to us? And still, we continue to cause Him pain through our acts of sin.

When Mary Magdaline was going to be stoned for her lifestyle of sin, Jesus intervened, saying, “Let the first to cast a stone be they who have not sinned.” Jesus saved her life, and she wanted to express her gratitude to Him. Jesus said, “Go and sin no more.”

In reflection today, I thought about the numerous speaking engagements I have conducted throughout various communities, as well as the consultations I have done in my lifetime. I thought, “I wish I could have helped more people find a path to health.” Immediately, like a bolt of lightning, I had a quick, unique comparison of how God might feel as He views the many souls that abandon Him. All because we refuse to live by the Commandments. Although I do not believe God has the same type of emotions as we do, I feel certain He does feel sadness.

Knowing all of this to be true, we must ask ourselves, “Why are most of us so dumb for so long?” God cannot bless us with His many graces and gifts that He so much desires to share with us when we continually sin and rebuke Him. Is this not stupid? It is as though we are saying, “Keep your gifts, I would rather go to Hell than to obey You.”

Could we then imagine a child at Christmas saying to his/her parents, “Mom, Dad, keep your gifts, I don’t want them. I would rather sit here and destroy all of my sister’s gifts.” Our children are gifts from God, we are required to teach them about God from a young age to be God-fearing. And when we have done that, and yet our children make wrong choices, we need not blame ourselves, as God gives all the gift of free will to choose right from wrong.