Faith relies on facts not feelings

 

The past few weeks I’ve struggled with up/down emotions concerning my responsibilities. Some days they are challenging but doable. Other days I feel totally overwhelmed and want to sleep all day. This is a new experience for me. For years, I have felt confident in taking on most things, but God is working in me to remove self-confidence and rely on Him only. For this, He used a month of trauma.

Today’s devotional expresses it this way: “It is all very well, perhaps, to rejoice in God’s promises or in the revelations He may have granted us or in the experiences we may have realized; but to rejoice in the Promiser himself—Him alone—is the crowning point of Christian life. This is the only place we can know the peace which passes all understanding and where nothing can disturb.”

This is difficult to describe, but as I read the rest of it, the lights came on. That sense of God being enough is wonderful, but if that sense is not there, that indicates that I have been relying on my feelings or view about Him and that is not what “God is enough” means.

The author of the devotional puts it this way: sometimes what satisfies us is not the Lord but our own feelings about the Lord. Usually we are not conscious of this, but our feelings fail, we think it is the Lord who has failed. At that, despair easily follows. Of course, this is foolish, yet it is such a common experience, that very few realize what has happened.

An illustration likens the Christian experience to a train. Fact is the engine pulling it. Faith is the the coal car that fuels the engine, and feelings are the caboose that trails along behind. Although it trails, the caboose is important – it is where the train crew lives.

However, it does not work to put faith or the caboose in the lead. When that happens, the facts are not the main source of living. As long as faith and feelings are solid, all is okay, but once they take a dip (and they often do) facts need to be put in place. This has never been a problem for me until this past while. And like the devotion says, I couldn’t figure out what was going on so prayed that God would show me, and He did. My caboose was taking the lead.

This past few weeks I’ve had three big projects happening, plus being very ill, plus two deaths, plus no ladies prayer time or small group Bible study meetings (leader is on holidays) and I’ve stayed home too much. The family of God needs each other to keep on track, to be fact-checkers for one another. This devotional reminded me of these verses:

But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end. (Psalm 73:16–17)

My struggle is not the same as the psalm’s author who was concerned about the prosperity of the wicked, but the solution is similar; he sought discernment in the place where the people of God gather to worship. I need Christian fellowship, not coffee and cookies but sharing truth about God. Truth is the facts that pull the train. Too much time alone opens the door to other visitors, like burdens, difficult experiences, emotional issues, etc.

PRAY: Knowing that You have not abandoned me even when I feel as if You have is important Lord. Having other Christians remind me that You are here, or even me being the one who does the reminding for them is the way to keep that fact engine pulling my faith and keeping my feelings square with the facts. Thank You Jesus for being the way and the TRUTH and my life. This is going to be a good day! (Later: and it was!)