Sense of Reason: Elinor

“Sense will always have attractions for me.”  ―Elinor Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility 

“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled...Jesus wept.” ― John 11:33 & 35

Elinor Dashwood is a woman of reason.  Unlike her sister Marianne, Elinor never allows her emotions to get the better of her. She approaches her world through sound logic and deep reasoning. This way of handling life appeals to many who, like Elinor, seek to keep their emotions at bay. However, as a wise man once said, every strength taken to the extreme becomes a weakness. Elinor’s reasonableness almost costs her a life of true love and fulfillment.

Along with Scripture, tradition, and experience, humankind’s ability to reason is one of the ways in which we can know God more. God created a world that is orderly and fits together. This sense of orderliness is marred by the fallen nature of the world because of humankind’s sin, but we can still see the reason and thought behind God’s work. God even reasons with us regarding our sin and His redemption, as seen in Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Reason and intellect are good gifts of God to be celebrated and used to know Him.

However, just like Elinor, we can take this good gift to an extreme and miss out on the importance of emotion. During His time on earth, Jesus felt deeply and experienced many emotions. In John 11, as quoted above, Jesus did not simply reason His way out of a dire situation, but He allowed Himself to feel and sit with the emotions of His humanity. Being fully God as well, He certainly knew that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, but He did not allow this foreknowledge to keep Him from His feelings. He was so distraught over the experience of Lazarus dying that “he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled...Jesus wept.” He felt the pain of Lazarus’s sisters Mary and Martha and sat with them in their hardship. As Christians, we need to learn how to sit with the distress and discomfort of emotions, and, while not being led without reason by emotions, we must feel as our Lord and Savior felt.

Elinor is a wonderful example of the power of reason in the life of a character, but she takes this strength to the extreme, and her desire to reason through every situation becomes a hindrance. May we learn to know God more not only through our reason, but also through our ability to feel and experience healthy emotions.