Truth

Something I’ve been experiencing lately is the difference between my emotions and what is actually true. Emotions are wily things that try to convince you that what you feel is the reality around you. Sometimes that simply isn’t true.

Now before any of you worry too much about me cutting off my emotions and bottling my feelings, I’d like to say one thing. There was a point in my life (I’d say, up until three years ago) when I didn’t really experience any feeling. I was quite numb and useless in many situations where emotions are completely relevant. Often times I would find myself asking what a normal person would be feeling and how they would react because I knew my own natural response was devoid of any human feeling.

I began to realize that being emotionally barren wasn’t normal and started to evaluate what could have caused this response of shutting down my emotions. After reflection and prayer I was able to root out the source of the problem. At some point in my life it had been communicated to me that emotions were a sign of weakness, and if you showed them any point you were trying to make was made invalid. In other words, emotions weren’t worth much, and in order to have value I needed to stop having them. So, I did.

After discovering the root of my problem, I started praying that God would open up that part of me again, that I would have access to those things which make being human so achingly unique and special. Gradually, (so gradually that I did not even notice when it began to happen) God gave me back my emotions. This was a significant event in my life as it unfolded because it enabled me to feel the joy and the pain of others. It allowed me to mourn with them and rejoice with them. I think this made me a better friend and follower of Christ.

So, friends, to get back to the beginning of this entry: sometimes there is a difference between my emotions and what is actually true. Lately this has come in the form of my relationships with men. Or one man in particular. The man I shared the gospel with, which led him to surrender His life to the loving Lordship of Christ. This situation was very foreign to me because in college I rarely shared the gospel in this coffee-shop sort of way. Hopefully I was living it out daily for people to see, but as for sitting down with someone to purposefully show them the road that God is calling them down, that was new. So was sharing it with a guy.

In the beginning God’s love was coming through me to him, and so my own emotions were uninvolved. Then as our relationship progressed, as they tend to do, my heart did become involved. This man had offered me the very thing my heart desires. A relationship that would eventually end in marriage. Of course, he never came out and proposed, but he was interested in a committed relationship, and said so. This progression was so gradual, I didn’t even notice it, and before I could do anything, it was too late. I had come to care very much for this person, and I was riding the emotional roller coaster to prove it.

I think the roller coaster I was on was particularly extreme with its ups and downs because intermittent with the feelings was the truth. The truth that this was a new Christian who deserved a chance to learn to stand in his faith. The truth that in the deepest part of my heart I knew that I wanted more than this; I wanted a man who could lead me, who could shepherd me in my spiritual life, who could transcend humanness and be Christ to me. And the truth was and is I am willing to wait for this. Despite my emotions telling me to take this opportunity because it felt good, my very soul still desired God’s best, and that is what kept me standing firm in my resolve not to enter into a dating relationship with this man: the truth.

I think God also saw me succumbing to the emotions and caused a situation to happen that has taken them out of the equation. This man and I are still friends, so you needn’t worry about that, but I praise the Lord that He rescued me from the sea I was drowning in by crashing me against the Rock that He is.

There have been many other feelings that I’ve had that aren’t true. The feelings that I am alone and that nobody knows me are prevalent. I am learning to let God speak to those feelings, and some days I am better at it than others, but that is the reality of living in the truth. It is the daily, hourly decisions I make to trust God’s character and His word over what I am feeling.

So as not to discount the validity of emotion I feel the need to say that there have definitely been times too when what I am feeling is true, but here are a few questions I’ve been pondering.

If you didn’t feel this way (whether happy or sad) would you still praise God?

Are you praising God because of how you feel or because of who He is?

Learning to praise God through the sadness or loneliness has been one of the richest experiences of my Christian life. Experiencing this biblical truth in my life fills my soul beyond what I could have imagined for myself. And it is then that I realize I am experiencing contentment. The real kind that Paul spoke of when he was in prison. Being able to praise God even when it is hard or lonely has to be one of the biggest blessings we as Christians have. This does not mean putting on a happy face, but rather acknowledging that God is good whether life is treating us meanly or whether we are in a time of great blessing. And that, my friends, is the truth.

Praise the Lord.
Praise O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord. Let the name of the Lord be praised both now and forevermore. From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised.
The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?
He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes, and the princes of their people. He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children.
Praise the Lord.

Psalm 113