Live Not By Vibes

It matters how things feel. It matters more how things are.

Photo by Nick Page on Unsplash

My late mother had an uncanny ability to snuff out when something seemed off. A situation, an environment where things just didn’t feel right. She was not always correct in her intuitions but had a pretty good batting average. In some ways, she’s endowed me with that sense as well. Today we might call this “vibes.”

The Oxford Dictionary defines vibes as “a person's emotional state or the atmosphere of a place as communicated to and felt by others.” My teenage kids will say, “That place has negative vibes” or that show has “good vibes.”

Vibes can be helpful. God has given humans the ability to intuit, to feel, to sense. Some possess this more than others. People’s feelings about things can run the spectrum, from overly skeptical/paranoid on the one end to naive and trusting on the other.

Yet we have to be careful to always listen to or trust our feelings. A few examples come to mind.