I want to talk about feelings. Why? Because I’ve found that feelings can cause a whole lot of trouble, and I think it’s time we start talking about them! I don’t think we talk about feelings enough in relation to our faith.
I can’t tell you how many times my feelings have convinced me of something that’s 100% not true. Feelings are so overwhelming, they are so real and valid, but they can be so deceitful! I’ve always seemed to struggle with doubts of some sort. I mean, I think we all do, but I think I may allow the doubts to creep in more than others. I allow feelings to overwhelm me in a moment and convince me of something that feels so true but is far from the truth. Feelings lie to us.
At the very beginning of the Race in Cote d’Ivoire, I felt far from God. I couldn’t seem to feel His presence no matter how hard I tried. And because that distance felt so real to me, I started to convince myself that somehow my faith wasn’t that real. NO. THAT’S A LIE. I read my favorite chapter (potentially of all time) in Chasing God by Angie Smith because it is jam packed with amazing truth. And once again, though I still felt far from God, I had renewed passion and faith that God is there and present with me despite how it feels. And then Ghana came along, and I had a wonderful month of joy that eliminated a lot of my doubts. The months in Asia have been good, but this last month in Indonesia, doubts started to creep in again.
The World Race is amazing. I love it. I’m glad I’m doing it. Do I agree with everything that Adventures in Missions or fellow Racers do or believe? Not always. That has been a tough battle for me. Certain things get talked about all the time on the Race, such as inner healing and deliverance, healing, and hearing the voice of the Lord. All of those are Biblical, and I agree with them all, but sometimes the way things are said in relation to those things are definitely not the way I would say them. I don’t always necessarily agree with the ways people approach these subjects. Because of that, this last month brought me to a place where I had convinced myself I was flawed and broken and not able to get to the same level of Christianity as some people are apparently on. I was wrecked and felt so stuck in a pit for a few days that I actually felt separated from God in a weird sort of way I couldn’t understand. No bueno.
Thank you Jesus for truth. A few days later, I had a wonderful conversation with people who reminded me of truth, told me how they saw fruit in my life, and just encouraged me and reminded me there are lots of ways to approach different things in the Christian faith. And then I once again knew it was time to read chapter four of Chasing God. I just want to share some of those truths with you because I think we’d all be lying if we said we always felt God’s presence or felt rock solid in our faith. Of course He is always there but sometimes we don’t feel Him. And I want you to know those feelings are real and valid, but feelings are not always truth.
Below, I included my favorite parts of the chapter (but you should really just go read it fully for yourselves). I paraphrased some parts and others are exact quotes. I’m sorry, I’m giving Angie Smith full credit, but I’m going to skip the citations/quotes/all that good stuff. But here goes – the best parts of chapter four, and I hope it encourages some of you as much as it has me!!
Allowing your emotions to guide your faith is probably the worst approach. When things are hard, and we don’t understand why something is happening, we can come to conclusions such as God doesn’t really exist, He doesn’t seem to love me, maybe I’ve done something wrong, or we need to make up for our wrong actions and get back on sure footing with Him.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15: For the love of Christ compels us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.
We have concluded. Not we feel, but we have concluded despite what we feel.
C.S. Lewis says: “People are often worried…they are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feelings in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it.”
Part of faith is trusting in what we can’t see. God rejoices in our faith when we trust Him even when we don’t emotionally sense His presence or feel like He is close. When we feel unsure of whether or not He loves us or if He even exists, we have to trust His word more than our perceptions.
You might not ever be fully, unquestionably, unswervingly convinced that God loves you or that you love Him in return. It’s not because it’s not true, but because you’re a finite human being trying to understand something you weren’t created to thoroughly comprehend. Often times, the best thing we can do is continue saying we believe Him in spite of the fact we don’t have the emotional counterpart in the measure we wish we did. And God isn’t punishing you if you don’t feel it. In fact, He’s telling you something you might never have fully considered until now: It’s not required.
We often compare our faith to others. Oh wow, they had this amazing experience with the Lord. Have I even met this God they are referring to, and if so, how come I am not having the same experience?! It makes us feel like we aren’t where we are supposed to be spiritually. But following Christ isn’t based on what we can see of Him. It’s believing He has shown us enough of Himself to trust Him with what we can’t see.
Our feelings do not indicate the quality of our faith. We will have moments where we experience a sense of Him that is overwhelming and poetic, where the curtain is pulled back a bit on his essence. But those moments shouldn’t dictate our behavior, nor should we faultily assume they are the result of it.
I often ask the Lord to show me more of Himself. That is not a wrong thing to ask, but what I should be most concerned with is his glory. Only your glory God, regardless of whether I get to see and feel your presence. Even if I don’t feel you near all the time, I will follow for your glory. We may see His glory and we may not, but we do well to remember that His glory remains regardless.
The enemy may try to convince us we aren’t good Christians if we don’t feel God’s presence, but we need to be more concerned with obedience than feelings. But we also can’t allow our obedience to lead us to think we can just do the right things to get to God. Yes, we need obedience, but ultimately God is the one who changes us and transforms us. We need to be willing to do what He says yet know that absolutely nothing we do would ever be enough to get to God. Jesus made the way and we are to trust in Him as the Holy Spirit works to transform us.
Mark 9 tells the story of a man asking Jesus for healing for his son, and he says, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” His statement displays our human nature due to sin. We say we believe, but in our hearts we can’t fully eliminate doubts. But our actions should come from what we know to be true, even if it doesn’t feel true. The power in this man’s statement is that he declares that he believes.
God isn’t going to punish us for our feelings, but we can’t allow our feelings to dictate our course. Most of the time, you might not feel like sharing the Gospel with your neighbor or giving up what you want to love someone else, yet we don’t act on our feelings, we act on the truth. We know the truth because God has given us the truth. We have His word and His promises, and we have to keep walking forward in obedience, knowing we have hope in Jesus. We have chosen to believe in Jesus, and He is our strong foundation. Don’t wait for the miracle you think will make it clear. Confess your belief and then act out of that determination.
Nobody can always have devout feeling: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. He will give us feelings of love if He pleases but we cannot create them for ourselves and we must not demand them as a right. But though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. We must simply fix our eyes, steady ourselves with His promises, and put one foot resolutely in front of the other out of obedience. And when the feelings of unbelief come like clouds on the path, we form these words alone with our lips, and we step forward anyway. Lord, I believe.
Hebrews 11:1: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Romans 8:24-25: For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
