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Do these statements sound as familiar to you as they do to me?
"Sometimes I just don't sense God's presence and I don't know
why." "When I have lost my love for the Lord, how do I make
myself love Him again?" "How do I worship when I really
don't want to?" "Is there something I can do about the down
times in my spiritual life?"
We all tend to live by our feelings. "If
it feels good, do it," we're told. Yet as Christians, our
responsibility is to be in control of our feelings. We may not
understand why we feel a certain way, but our emotions need to be
under control. Emotions change rapidly due to the experiences we
have, the circumstances we face, and the problems we encounter.
Feelings often come and go without our ever knowing why.
Controlling Your Emotions.
The psalmist in Psalm 42:5 said it well. He
realized that his emotions were down, so he said, "Why are you
downcast, O my soul?" He talked to himself. He said, "Look,
soul, why such hopelessness? Why have you become so disturbed?"
Here is a picture of a man whose will is in control of his emotions.
He realizes his emotions are not measuring up to what he wants to
experience, so he examines himself and asks, "Why am I this
way?" The first thing to do is examine ourselves and ask the
question, "Why am I feeling this way?" It may be an
unconfessed sin, but then maybe it's something that we can't explain,
something we have to trust God with.
The psalmist examined his emotions and then he
exhorted himself by saying, "Hope in God, for I shall again
praise Him for the help of His presence" (v.5 NASB). You can
count on Him to reveal Himself to you.
The last thing he did was to remind himself,
"Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my
countenance, and my God" (v.11 NASB). He said that God is the
one who helps our countenance--the outward expression of our inward
condition. So examine yourself, exhort yourself, and remind yourself
that God is the One who can help you deal with your feelings.
When you lose your feelings for a devotional
time, the most important thing to do is to go on doing what you
should be doing. Don't let your feelings be your guide. You might
say, "I don't feel very good so I think I'll wait until my
feelings change." You need to go on whether or not your feelings
are positive.
Just Do It.
Actions change feelings. Someone has said,
"Act enthusiastic and you will be." That is not just
positive thinking. God doesn't want us to dismiss our feelings. We
must learn, however, to acknowledge them and then express them in a
way that honors God.
It is a lot easier to act ourselves into new
thinking than it is to think ourselves into a new action. This means
that if we don't have the right feelings, we shouldn't wait until
they come. Just the opposite. We must work on our actions and the
right feelings will follow.
Every healthy relationship experiences ebb and
flow. So do our own emotions. The Lord understands when our
friendship with Him is sometimes low on feeling. He allows our
feelings to run low so we will remember that our love friendship with
Him is not based on them, but on our commitment to Him.
When you have the spiritual blahs, just go to
the Lord and tell Him. He knows. Then go to the Psalms and read to
see how many spiritual downers the psalmists had and what the writers
did to rekindle their feelings.
Life brings all the feelings--some good, some
bad. Larry Crabb, a clinical psychologist, says that emotional
maturity is not the absence of negative feelings. We all feel anger,
guilt, and fear. That is normal. An emotionally mature individual,
however, is one who recognizes what the feelings are, admits them,
and seeks to express them in the way that would best honor God.
Curtis
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