Feelings

Feelings …. We all have them.  We are all impacted by them.  Feelings are a great gift from God but they are often mishandled by us under the influence of the enemy.

Remember the Perry Como version of the song “Feelings” …. (I’m not the only one who can hear the sound in my ears …. )
Feelings, nuthin' more than feelings,
Tryin' to forget my feelings of love
Teardrops, rollin' down on my face,
Tryin' to forget my feelings of love
Feelings, for all my life I'll feel it,
I wish I'd never met you girl, You'll never come again
Feelings, Oh Oh Oh feelings, Oh Oh Oh feel you, again in my arms
(Music by Mauricio Kaiserman with English lyrics by Morris Albert, 1975)

This guy was having a hard day with his broken heart.  We all have hard days.  Some we can explain based on grief and loss, relationship breakdown, sickness, or pain.  Sometimes, for no known reason we just feel low or blue or lonely or “out of sorts”.  In our society too many people act in accordance with their feelings rather than acting their way into the feelings they would like to have.  God’s promise to us is that we will have love, joy, and peace when we walk in obedience with His will. 


And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can’t think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.  But that’s no life for you.

You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.  (Ephesians 4:18-24 MSG)

Negative feelings are always attached to a lie.  To truly get beyond negative feelings we actually have to reject a lie and choose for the truth.  Truth needs to be believed while our feelings are still negative.  In faith, we choose to believe something new, tell ourselves the truth (as often as necessary), and then act in the way of truth.  Only then will our feelings start to change and a new way of life really come.

Addictions offer short term pacifiers and escapes but no real peace and blessing.  Actions based simply on how we feel are a sure route for disaster in our lives.  How wonderful that God gives us a new and joyful journey to follow.  It does require surrender to the truth.  It requires surrendering our feelings.  It requires choosing God’s good and loving ways by first laying down our familiar self-centered ways.  I have a choice today.  The choice is for me and my feelings or, for God and His ways.  The first leads to disaster.  The second leads to life.