In love with a feeling?

Are you emotional? We all are. Some of us are more prone to display our emotions than others, but emotions are present in every man, woman, and child. God made us with the ability to know joy, to be able to feel afraid, to become anxious or to settle into a state of serenity. A person who has learned how to ‘deal with his emotions’ is richer for them. If feelings are put in charge that person is in at great risk. Where emotions rule, you find a person who is unstable and unproductive; yes, childish. We expect a toddler to plummet from giddy heights of laughter to stormy tumult of tears within 5 minutes. That same emotional roller coaster in an adult is cause for concern! At the opposite extreme, the person who represses emotions, who refuses to experience them, is bereft of true humanity.

Recently, as I prayed, I realized that I was chasing a feeling, that I was trying to find God through a certain state of mind. It became clear to me that I am much more likely to praise Him when I feel peace, when my emotions are running in a specific direction. Sensing the Presence of the Lord through our emotions is clearly a good thing. There are moments when I find myself so full of emotion that it spills over in tears or bursts out in a rolling laugh. But, Jesus taught us to love God more deeply than that. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’" (Mark 12:30, NIV) Our walk with the Lord is a combination of emotion and truth, of passion and discipline, of feeling and fact.

God’s love for us is not at the mercy of our emotions. He does not only love us when we feel all warm and fuzzy inside when they sing our favorite worship song in church! He is not just present when tears spill over in a particularly touching time of prayer. He is equally God on the bad days as He is in the good ones. He is still Lord when exhaustion steals our passion. He is Lord when anxiety about the future produces a temporary soul paralysis. Disciple, don’t fall in love with a feeling. Choose to love the Truth! If we build our salvation on a special state of mind, on emotional well-being, we are resting on a foundation of sand. Yes, we will find ourselves then chasing a feeling, looking for a religious high, running here and there wanting somebody to renew the excitement.

Zephaniah reminds the people of the Lord to trust the Truth! "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17, NIV) Jeremiah, a man who knew God through much suffering, urges us to be steady. "Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." (Lamentations 3:22-23, NIV) Do you see the focus of that faith? It is not on the person, on finding a state of mind, even on doing something to provoke a response from the Lord. That person who would stay consistent in devotion focuses on God’s faithfulness!

______________________

Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible
Hid from our eyes;
Most blessed, most glorious,
The Ancient of Days;
Almighty, victorious,
Thy great name we praise.

Unresting, unhasting
And silent as light;
Nor wanting, nor wasting,
Thou rulest in might.
Thy justice, like mountains,
High soaring above;
Thy clouds, which are fountains
Of goodness and love.

To all, life Thou givest,
To both great and small;
In all, life Thou livest,
The true life of all;
We blossom and flourish
As leaves on the tree,
And wither and perish
But naught changeth Thee.

Great Father of glory,
Pure Father of light;
Thine angels adore Thee
All veiling their sight.
All praise we would render,
O help us to see
'Tis only the splendor
Of light hideth Thee.

Immortal Invisible
Smith, Walter Chalmers / Robert, John

© Public Domain