It was probably during my first year of college that I realized that feelings are very important to me. When I’m done with the rational/theological analyses and I still have two options, I’ll go with the one that feels right. But what happens when the feeling comes before you’ve had time to analyse?
I’d need to look back in my journals for what the specific Bible study was about, but that year, I was introduced to the concept of faith vs feeling and I realized that much of my so-called faith was really feelings based.
In the garden of Eden, when Eve ate the fruit, nothing about the experience felt wrong: It looked nutritious, pleasant to the eye, and logically desirable if it would make her wise. The only thing censuring her course of action was the clear Word of God. She couldn’t trust her experience, as compelling as it was. But she could trust God’s Word which is living and powerful and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
It’s been a while since I had an experience so palpable it struck with resounding force at the core of this faith vs feeling controversy in my life… Where my heart yells out one thing and my body agrees with it: But in the stillness of my time with God, the true reality is made plain and I cannot, in safety, follow my heart.
It’s been a while since I had to give up something I really wanted because it was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, it’s not because there aren’t things in my life I should have given up a long time ago. But this time, if I couldn’t let this one go, I would end up hurting people I care very deeply about – and the knowledge of that provided the extra impetus.
Every fiber of my being screams that I’m doing the wrong thing in letting this one go. But faith trusts God’s wisdom above my experience and I know it will all work out.
So glad that you shared this… And it’s not just surrender of the emotions, but the intellect too that needs to bow to the Great I Am.
I take it you’re more of the rational than the emotional, Michel 🙂
It seems people are generally more one than the other and so struggle to surrender either their intellect or their hearts to God.
Yes, both our thoughts and feelings need to be yielded though – to trust God’s Word more than human wisdom or my own heart!
amen. i really love this post, sikhu.
needed to read that. amen and amen.
No, I think I’m definitely more on the emotional side…Which is why it’s even more unsettling when what seems to be a safety-net for my emotional proclivities (the intellect) also has to be surrendered to the will of God. 🙂
I’ve noticed many people don’t want to understand whether something is right or wrong, but they want to have an overwhelming feeling confirming it. Yet it seems overwhelming feelings largely come when we work ourselves up fighting against what we know. I’m glad you’re placing your trust in God and not your screaming fibers.