I write emails to myself. Long, crazy, rambling, hysterical emails to myself. And then? Then I blog about those ideas. Because email keeps me sane.
Inbox zero keeps me sane. I lie awake sometimes thinking about the emails I have to respond to that I was putting off because I didn’t feel like thinking about the topic or because I couldn’t seem to focus enough to get the words out, or the last and most awful reason:
I didn’t want to respond. I’ve been feeling that way recently. My phone will ring, a bunch of texts will come through and honestly, I just don’t want to respond. I don’t want to respond all the time to IG comments, I don’t always care to reply to the emails, and really, sometimes I wish life would move on without me.
However…
The whole is other than the sum of its parts.
-Kurt Koffka
We often translate this as
the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which is an
incorrect translation that
Gestalt psychologistKurt Koffka disliked and corrected when faced with it. How does this apply here? My end-goal is greater than any feeling within me. The
whole of my purpose is greater than the
sum of the parts that affect it.
Paul wrote this in II Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Sometimes our feelings can be our greatest weakness because we choose to allow them to weigh us down. We choose to act upon our feelings instead of facts…to allow our feelings to become our whole instead of realizing that our factual surroundings, our will, always plays a greater part in the whole of our lives than our feelings – if we decide to give power to our will rather than our feelings.
The human will is not made up of various components other than the human will itself. It can be influenced by the other parts that make up our psyche and our thinking process-feelings, emotions, circumstances and surroundings-however it is other than the sum of those things. It exists on its own. As a Christian, I believe it exists in conjunction with the strength that the Lord offers to those who lean and rely on Him. I have faith in His ability to give me strength and power greater than what I could ever have on my own.
So I will get up in the morning, I will check my emails and I will respond. Because, great opportunities come through email (also spam, but we’re being positive here). But more importantly, because my feelings are less important than people. Because the whole of my relationships are other than the sum of the feelings and insecurities about email.
‘Cause this is not about what you’ve done,
But what’s been done for you.
This is not about where you’ve been,
But where your brokenness brings you to
This is not about what you feel,
But what He felt to forgive you,
And what He felt to make you loved.
You are more than the choices that you’ve made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You’ve been remade.
What is it that you put off?
Does it have to do with your whole purpose and how the little pieces influence it?
I want to remind you that you, as a whole person, are other than the sum of the parts affecting your calling and hampering you from fulfilling it. You have a choice to act upon this fact:
You. Are. More.
