Friday, May 21

not based on feelings.

for so long i have often depended on my feelings and emotions to tell me where i stand. where i stand in relationships in particular. with people. and with God. if i don't 'feel' close to God, i often assume that means that He really isn't close. that my feelings are fact. intellectually, i guess i've known that what i feel isn't always very truthful on reality. even being the logic person i am, my sensitive part takes over. since i can't visibly see God, He is not reflected through light on my rods and cones, i can't depend on that for truth about Him. since i can't literally feel Him, He does not set off chemical reactions in my nerves, i can't depend on that either. since i can't audibly hear Him, He does not vibrate the air in my eardrum, i can't depend on that. since i can't smell or taste God (had not really thought about that before... could be kinda weird, since i don't immediately think of a person having a taste, a smell yes, but thats still kinda pushing it), i can't depend on those. so what do i have left? my intuition, my feelings, my emotions. so often i depend on them to tell me how i'm doing in terms of my relationship with the Big Man Upstairs. i've been reading through the transferable concepts (www.transferableconcepts.org), and something that has really struck me that he repeats a lot is that our faith is not based on feelings. that feelings and emotions are a God-given thing and that they are important and wonderful. but they're not something to base my view or truth on. that this Christian life is based on faith. and faith alone. trusting. dictionary.com defines faith as: confidence or trust; belief that is not based on proof; the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved. faith comes from the latin word fides, meaning 'trust' or 'belief'. so it's not based on feelings or any of your senses. it's trust.
as always, this life of faith is often a battle. but i feel like these past few days, i've had a victory. instead of focusing on how i am feeling (which is self-focused anyways), i am focusing on Him and trusting. i used to think that since my closeness with God was shown by my feelings towards Him, i had to change the way i felt for my relationship to change. now i don't know about you, but it's not really easy and sometimes impossible to change the way you feel. it's just there. so for so long i felt like i had to change how i felt or do something to feel closer to God so that i could get closer. can you say relying on your own strength??
now i'm not promising at all that i've completely conquered this or that i will never struggle with it again in my life. that would just be crazy.
but for now, i'm learning and realizing that i can become close to God and live in His power and not my own, no matter where my feelings tell me i am. it's wonderfully freeing. :)

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