Have you ever thought about how much of your life is driven by feelings? I hadn’t…until recently.
I’ve prided myself for quite some time, on knowing the truth about feelings. I know that I often-times can’t trust them. I’ve winced when I heard the phrase, “Just follow your heart and you’ll do fine.” In my head, I’ve completely disagreed with the idea that feelings should have such a strong hold over my thoughts and actions, and yet…
And yet, more often then not, I’m living based off of my emotions rather than based off of truth. And not even noticing it.
I think that when life is going well, this is easy to slip into. It is for me. I had honestly never even considered how emotionally driven I was until the last few months.
Let me just pause for a moment to clarify something. I’m not saying emotions are bad. I think emotions are a God-given, powerful, wonderful tool that He can use in an amazing way in our lives. What I’m talking about are the times when our emotions supersede truth. When God says, “I have you. You can rest.” and my feelings tell me “I’m alone!! I have to do something!” And when instead of trusting God, and His words, I trust in my feelings and my thoughts. That’s when they are dangerous.
I say all this because I have been struggling with faith vs. feeling lately. There are a couple things going on in life right now that leave me with the feeling that all is not right with the world. And it’s not. Suffering, pain and hurt aren’t right. God never intended them to be right. But He never intended for me to be beaten by them either. Christ overcame, and in Christ I can overcome.
That doesn’t mean that I won’t experience those things at all. You don’t have to look far to see that everyone suffers to one degree or another. Yet some people seem to rise above the pain and emerge triumphant, while others sink and wallow in it. In my opinion, the difference is found in the faith vs. feeling arena.
Those who are unable to look beyond their feelings about the hardships that have come, are overcome. Those who choose to hope, choose to have faith, are the over-comers.
Believers whose eyes are firmly fixed on God, rather than the ever-changing events of life, and the feelings which spring from them, are the ones who have truly found joy. Not necessarily happiness, but joy.
I hope and pray that anyone who reads this finds that joy…just as I pray to have it myself. Christ came into this world, was born into this dirty, dingy place, to bring hope, salvation and joy. I have been forgetting what Christmas is about…wondering how we can have a good Christmas when everything isn’t alright, and when everything isn’t as I want it.
In writing this, I’m reminded of how we can have a good Christmas despite my feelings. By looking up and remembering who Christmas is really about! I celebrate Him, not me!! It’s about Him, not me!! Even if life never “felt” right again, He is good, He is right, and He can give me joy, despite my circumstances.
~Stacy