Often it is our emotions that dictate our actions and reactions.

This morning I came back from early morning hockey to find the lights on in the living room.

Normally, on a Saturday morning after hockey, things are the same as when I left at 6:30 a.m. – dark and nothing stirring.

But this morning there was activity. There was a vacuum humming in the background and I wondered what was going on.

There were a couple of possibilities: Lily had a lot happening and she needed to get a good jump on the day, or we had a guy coming in to do the backsplash in our kitchen.

I knew that it was a guy who was going to be doing the work and his work would focus only in the kitchen, but that didn’t matter; the whole house needed to be clean before he arrived.

… Turns out that neither one of those reasons was correct.

Lily had the vacuum out because there was a trail of ants in our living room and there was no way they were going to survive on her watch.

She was so busy vacuuming the little critters up that she couldn’t tell where they were coming from or going to. But she didn’t stop talking to them … in a rather loud voice, I might add.

That Dyson vacuum really swirled those ants up. They either got a great ride out of the deal or it was like they were swooped up and taken from Kansas to the world of Oz … only there was no yellow brick road, just a garbage can at the end of their ride.

The ants kept coming though. Lily was so preoccupied with killing them that she wasn’t doing anything about dealing with the reason they were coming in or how to keep them out.

Finally I decided to remove a large poinsettia plant from the living room that may have been their destination. And Lily got some spray we had in the garage to attack them.

We wiped up around the plant and made sure that the area was clean. Then we sprayed the place where the ants were coming in, as well as the outside of the house.

You would think that after that we could get back to the regular activities of the day and let the spray do its thing, but no! Lily wanted to make sure the stuff was working so she stuck around and watched the ants curl up and die.

… It kind of amazes me that she is perfectly fine seeing that kind of a massacre but when I put on a shoot’em up, blow’em up movie, she can’t take it.

At least in my movies no one really dies; it’s all made up stunts.

When it comes to ants in her house, there is no way she’s taking prisoners alive!

As far as the ants were concerned it was a real-life horror and they were the main characters.

I think watching the hockey game tonight, no matter how rough it gets, will be tame compared to this morning’s events.

Here’s the thing:  When something grabs our emotions, we can’t let it go. I wonder if many Christians have an intellectual relationship with Christ but it has yet to get to their emotions. Faith in Christ is more than giving assent to a belief; it involves being emotionally engaged in what you believe.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What grabs you emotionally about Christ Jesus? Leave your comments below.