Visceral Response

A visceral response is an immediate, instinctive, deeply felt reaction to something.  It often happens before a person has time to think it through logically.  It is an automatic, physical reaction to an event or emotion that seems to bypass logical thought.  I believe it to be a deep, gut-level feeling, of sorts.

For example, “I wasn’t just agitated; I was grievously taken aback and surprisingly overwhelmed deep within me by what happened.”

Have you ever experienced an emotion like that?  I have.

Very briefly, let me tell you about one such experience.  When I was receiving instruction and training to fly hang gliders, I was scheduled to obtain my pilot’s license that Saturday afternoon—a venture I had always wanted to undertake.  It was my twenty-third flight, as memory serves me.

I had a perfect flight, gliding on the winds out of the west.  It was a lovely day for flying—until it wasn’t

Out of nowhere, a gust of wind, called a rotor, took the glider and, because of my inexperience, thrust me downward toward the earth.  In my panic, I was somehow able to regain control of the craft.  I flared my glider upward to slow my descent just above the ground and end my flight.

But something else unexpected happened.

Of all the places I could have chosen to land, it just so happened that when my feet touched the ground, my right foot landed in a ground squirrel hole and folded underneath me.  The pain that followed, with the glider on top of me, was excruciating.  It was the worst sprain you can imagine, and it laid me up for months.

I decided that day to give up flying.  I figured if I could get hurt that badly on a fairly good flight, what might happen on a really bad flight?

Would you call this venture tempting fate—being subject to whatever the wind decided to do?  I was at the mercy of the wind, for Pete’s sake!  No more for me!

Likewise, we can become vulnerable to certain winds of man-made doctrines, being tossed about like a glider—subject to the wind and caught in a rotor of untruths.

If a doctrine goes contrary to God’s Word, it is not something we should follow.  It doesn’t matter how much good is presented alongside it.  We need to recognize the deception and run from it before it lays us up spiritually in a state of anguish and pain.

We must be wise as serpents and harmless as doves when putting our lives on the line to follow doctrines of untruth rather than the inerrant Word of God.

Jesus said in Matthew 10:16: “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”

False doctrines and cults may seem worthy of our attention, appearing to be safe at first glance.  But remember, truth always has a counterfeit.  Certain truths may be presented, but then comes the rotor of untruth that can drive a person downward into pain and suffering.

We must be wise in this day of deception.  DO NOT take things at face value.

Seek good counsel, if in doubt, from a born-again believer who knows God’s Word, loves Him, and follows His statutes—not someone who goes off half-cocked on a tangent of misnomers and strange beliefs.

A misnomer is a name, label, or term that is inaccurate, inappropriate, or misleading for the thing it describes.  We should be careful of anything presented to us under a name or label that does not accurately represent the truth of God’s Word.

If it doesn’t line up with the full counsel of God’s Word, leave it alone.

You could end up with a visceral response of deep remorse at the end of your venture.

Written by,

Papa Boyd