I don’t feel like it
We’ve all been there. Waking up on a Monday morning with a groan and realising that the last thing you want to do is go to work; or waking in the middle of the night to a crying child and despite knowing you need to get up and comfort them, feeling like you’d much rather stay warm in bed. Life is full of circumstances where your feelings don’t line up with actions you know that are right.
Feelings and emotions are an important part of life. We are created by God to have emotions and without them everything would be grey, dull and decidedly boring. Imagine never feeling happy or excited or loved. Even seemingly negative feelings, although not always comfortable, can drive us forward and motivate change when harnessed correctly. Today’s society has embraced the idea that feelings and emotions are necessary and should be considered important but there are those who feel that the emphasis on how we feel has become too pronounced and is causing more problems than it is solving.
Feelings, nothing more than feelings
Here’s the thing about feelings and emotions: While in many cases they are very real and valid, there are occasions when our feelings are nothing more than, well, feelings. We are emotional beings; we feel, sometimes deeply, but our emotions are influenced by our insecurities, our upbringing, our interaction with others, past experiences, and pretty much everything. Our feelings can also be fickle and over time can be subject to change. The fact is that just because you feel something doesn’t always make it true or right.
It’s important when dealing with how we feel that we are able to be objective, take a step back and measure our emotional response against something that is absolute. A person may feel that they are entitled to steal another person’s property because they need or want it, but the law of the land states that regardless of the feeling of the individual the action is wrong. It’s an absolute.
Feel the love
I know my husband loves me. He tells me often, shows me with his actions and is still hanging around after 11 years and 4 kids, so I reckon he probably does, but there are occasions when he may be quiet or withdrawn or just hangry (angry because he’s hungry) and I could feel less loved as a consequence, but I know that my feelings are based on a misconception and not the truth.
What are the facts?
Many people have a similar response when they consider God. They feel that He is disinterested or angry with them for some reason. They may feel that of all the attitudes God could have towards them, love is the last thing on the list. The Bible tells us that regardless of how we may feel, the truth about how God views us is very different.
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again”
God loves you! He loves in a way you will never fully understand but it’s all-encompassing, far-reaching and completely unconditional. Whether you accept this love or not, it’s still there, just as strong and deep. But our choices can block us from experience this love for ourselves. Unless we choose to accept the love that God has for us by embracing a relationship with Jesus, we can never fully know God’s love.
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