Oh the havoc that is wrought, and the tragedy, the misery, and the wretchedness that are to be found in the world, simply because people do not know how to handle their own feelings! ~ D. Martin Lloyd-Jones
This week has been a roller coaster of emotions of high's and lows and up until now I've just been riding it out. But God reminded me this morning that His character and truth is not dependent on my ever changing circumstances but on the steadfast and unchanging love of God. As I was reading in my devotional "Living the Cross Centered Life" by C. J. Mahaney it went over this very topic today.
I've done all the personality tests out there, some say I'm an extrovert and some say an introvert. However, most conclude that I am a feeler although I like to think of myself more as a thinker because when I think of feelers I think of whining babies and drama queens. But it's true, I am a feeler. I watched a movie and it moves me and I start crying. When I see injustice, it gets more emotional. That's not a bad thing. However, when it comes to making decisions and living out my faith, I can't always make decisions based on how I'm feeling at the present moment. There's too much I don't understand and I'm not inside other people's heads to know what they are thinking anyway, which if I'm basing my decisions on how I think others are feeling that just leads down the unhealthy road of people-pleasing. My feelings simply cannot be trusted.
And this happens in our spiritual lives too. We go into corporate worship wanting to "experience" God and when we open up our Bible we read words like redemption, Savior, and gospel and if those words don't invoke a feeling we just pass them by hoping for something else to light our fire. And so we simply cannot invest our feelings with final authority as they tend to be unstable, unreliable, and governed by pride. So that's the bad news!
The good news is God gives grace to the humble. Who are the humble? The humble don't ask How do I feel about this? They say I'm not going to let my faith be determined by the subjective and experiential but instead I will believe the objective truth of God's word, regardless of how I feel. So am I saying feelings are bad? Absolutely not, God made us to have them but we have to focus first on God's truth and then let our feelings flow from there because they will be anchored in truth. Mahaney says "as we read and mediate and think seriously about what's in our Bible, and believe and accept it, then ultimately we will experience it, and feel the full effect of it. But if you trust your feelings with final authority-they'll deposit you on the emotional roller coaster which so often characterizes our lives."
So I'm choosing today to believe the truth of God's word, that He is my joy, He is my redeemer, He is my provider, and He will carry me through. Will you believe God's truth today despite what circumstance you're in today?
This week has been a roller coaster of emotions of high's and lows and up until now I've just been riding it out. But God reminded me this morning that His character and truth is not dependent on my ever changing circumstances but on the steadfast and unchanging love of God. As I was reading in my devotional "Living the Cross Centered Life" by C. J. Mahaney it went over this very topic today.
I've done all the personality tests out there, some say I'm an extrovert and some say an introvert. However, most conclude that I am a feeler although I like to think of myself more as a thinker because when I think of feelers I think of whining babies and drama queens. But it's true, I am a feeler. I watched a movie and it moves me and I start crying. When I see injustice, it gets more emotional. That's not a bad thing. However, when it comes to making decisions and living out my faith, I can't always make decisions based on how I'm feeling at the present moment. There's too much I don't understand and I'm not inside other people's heads to know what they are thinking anyway, which if I'm basing my decisions on how I think others are feeling that just leads down the unhealthy road of people-pleasing. My feelings simply cannot be trusted.
And this happens in our spiritual lives too. We go into corporate worship wanting to "experience" God and when we open up our Bible we read words like redemption, Savior, and gospel and if those words don't invoke a feeling we just pass them by hoping for something else to light our fire. And so we simply cannot invest our feelings with final authority as they tend to be unstable, unreliable, and governed by pride. So that's the bad news!
The good news is God gives grace to the humble. Who are the humble? The humble don't ask How do I feel about this? They say I'm not going to let my faith be determined by the subjective and experiential but instead I will believe the objective truth of God's word, regardless of how I feel. So am I saying feelings are bad? Absolutely not, God made us to have them but we have to focus first on God's truth and then let our feelings flow from there because they will be anchored in truth. Mahaney says "as we read and mediate and think seriously about what's in our Bible, and believe and accept it, then ultimately we will experience it, and feel the full effect of it. But if you trust your feelings with final authority-they'll deposit you on the emotional roller coaster which so often characterizes our lives."
So I'm choosing today to believe the truth of God's word, that He is my joy, He is my redeemer, He is my provider, and He will carry me through. Will you believe God's truth today despite what circumstance you're in today?
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