News Flash: You are not your feelings!
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(Adapted from a devotional by Rick Warren)
Yes, He wants you to sense His presence, but He’s more concerned that you trust Him than that you feel Him. Faith, not feelings, pleases God.
The situations that will stretch your faith most will be those times when life falls apart and God is nowhere to be found. This happened to Job. On a single day he lost everything: his family, his business, his health, and everything he owned. Most discouraging—for what is recorded in the next 37 chapters, God said nothing!
How do you praise God when you don’t understand what’s happening in your life and God seems silent? How do you stay connected in a crisis without communication? How do you keep your eyes on Jesus when they’re full of tears? You do what Job did: “Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised’” (Job 1:20–21 NIV).
Tell God exactly how you feel. Pour out your heart. Unload every emotion. Job did this when he said, “I can’t be quiet! I am angry and bitter. I have to speak!” (Job 7:11 TEV)
He cried out when God seemed distant: “Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house” (Job 29:4 NIV).
God can handle your doubt, anger, fear, grief, confusion, and questions. As huge as they may feel or even be, our God would not be God were He not bigger and Beyond all of it, all of them, ALL.
Everything on earth has its own time and its own season.”God’s omnipresence and the manifestation of His presence are two different things. One is a fact; the other is often a feeling. God is always present, even when you are unaware of Him, and His presence is too profound to be measured by mere emotion.
– Ecclesiastes 3:1, CEV
Yes, He wants you to sense His presence, but He’s more concerned that you trust Him than that you feel Him. Faith, not feelings, pleases God.
The situations that will stretch your faith most will be those times when life falls apart and God is nowhere to be found. This happened to Job. On a single day he lost everything: his family, his business, his health, and everything he owned. Most discouraging—for what is recorded in the next 37 chapters, God said nothing!
How do you praise God when you don’t understand what’s happening in your life and God seems silent? How do you stay connected in a crisis without communication? How do you keep your eyes on Jesus when they’re full of tears? You do what Job did: “Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised’” (Job 1:20–21 NIV).
Tell God exactly how you feel. Pour out your heart. Unload every emotion. Job did this when he said, “I can’t be quiet! I am angry and bitter. I have to speak!” (Job 7:11 TEV)
He cried out when God seemed distant: “Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house” (Job 29:4 NIV).
God can handle your doubt, anger, fear, grief, confusion, and questions. As huge as they may feel or even be, our God would not be God were He not bigger and Beyond all of it, all of them, ALL.
