There are so many days when I’m not feelin’ it, you know? My life with God and love and faith and walking it out in the moment. Minutes and hours where I just feel gray or foggy or empty or heavy or pointless or even that some unidentified something hurts a little. And then guilt joins in and holds hands with these feelings because how can I, how dare I, have these kinds of emotions as a loved, forgiven, rescued child of God? How terrible is that? But it does happen to me, more often than I want (admitting it is difficult and, well, I never actually want it).
Those are times I’m especially grateful for Paul and his honesty and holy revelation for moments like this. He had them too, and though I don’t desire anyone to have similar feelings, it’s also cool (can I say that?) and encouraging to have a power-player like him experiencing the same life stuff that I do. To be human, flawed, honest, learning, and faithful in his daily, and to have the perfect timing of the Holy Spirit’s revealing to him the truth about the frustrating, that he walked it out and wrote it down for us so we could walk and be reminded too.
We don’t live by what we see or how we feel… {2 Corinthians 4:18, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Colossians 3:2}
What we see is temporary… {2 Corinthians 4:18}
What I want to do, I do not do… {Romans 7:15-25}
That “it’s good for you” can come out of hard moments… {Romans 5:3-4}
And that merciful God comforts us in ALL our tribulation, and IN it helps us to do the same… {2 Corinthians 1:3-4}
It’s sometimes multiple times a day when I’m down and just not feeling like I’m a Christ ‘anything’ in the moment, when I have to consciously recognize the current path of thoughts and emotions is actually a 6-lane expressway not taking me to my destiny, but ultimately destruction of some sort (even if it’s just destroying my mood for an hour, because destroyed is destroyed, right?).
Even when our circumstances are looking up, our soul can look down.
The gravity of sinful nature is a hard pull.
King David experienced it too… Why are you cast down, O my soul? What’s going on with you, mind, will, emotions? {Psalm 42:5,6,11; Psalm 43:5}
We can follow his example, by pausing and asking ourselves:
In this ‘not feeling it’ moment, what are the lies and deceptions I recognize? What are my thoughts believing?
Then: What is the truth right now to counter the lie?
And: What am I going to do with both, the lie and the truth?
Because: We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony… {Revelation 12:11}
We don’t have to feel it to know it, we don’t have to feel truth for it to BE truth, but we do have to KNOW truth, that there IS truth, and that what we may be experiencing in the moment is not.
Thank you, Paul, for your listening and obedience and relatability.
Thank you, David, for your honesty and pouring out your heart to God, letting us in on your aching moments.
Thank you, Holy Spirit, for reminding me of God’s word.
Thank you, God, for sending Your word to heal us and deliver us from our destruction. And for being the God Who Sees and the God Who Is There, always right there. And for the outpouring of your grace for our ‘gray’.
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image by jorge salvador on unsplash