Vol III: #12 All The Feels
The last woman I dated hit a wall about three months into our relationship. And through the final two months, she fought her feelings and dreadful thoughts to stay in the relationship before she finally relented. The feels were gone and she was left with a choice. And, she chose to bail. Like many people, she didn’t have the faith to see or love to endure a committed romantic relationship. And, I’m grateful we broke up- grateful in knowing my days are not tied to someone incapable of commitment or hope.
I will always have a reservoir of compassion for my ex-girlfriend, and all the people who struggle to overcome emotional addictions. It helps that I struggle too. The feelings fight is real, especially when our reactions are visceral. We tend to trust our feelings over logic or principles. And, this is one of the traps of our age.
One my heroes, CS Lewis, stated the enemy’s use of feeling this way in The Screwtape Letters:
The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills. When they meant to ask Him for charity, let them, instead, start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves and not notice that this is what they are doing. When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave. When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling; and never let them suspect how much success or fail.
I mauled over this passage for the last two years. And, I tried to find the space between being led by my feelings and honoring them. Feelings are from the Lord too, right? And, what would life be without being able to feel peace or love or gratitude or grief? Since all good things are from the Lord, and emotions are from the Lord, then our feelings are inherently good. I want to experience pain and joy, but not be led by them.
More important to my post today is the idea that the most powerful and grand aspects of the Lord’s Kingdom have nothing to do with feelings. Faith and love aren’t feelings. Peace isn’t a feeling. Love isn’t an emotion. They are a way to live life and they do not need the assistance of feelings.
What is good is always good, regardless of how we feel about it. The perverse thing is when the enemy confuses people so much they question the importance and critical natural of family or endurance. And how many arguments sprouted from hurt feelings loosely based on fact? A former roommate exploded when he thought I was ignoring him. It wasn’t true, of course. The episode exposed lingering abandonment issues deep within my friend. He let his feelings dictate his thoughts and actions.
I’ve been at peace, loved, and moving in faith without the feelings. AND, I’ve seen the Lord move during these moments. To be fair, the Lord moves all the time. He doesn’t make decisions on what I feel, which is good. I’ve felt a lot of feelings and if the Lord responded to all of them…He wouldn’t be God. He’d be some codependent, wannabe-deity, like a Greek god. The good result of putting feelings and emotions in a proper place is the overwhelming confidence that comes with faith and hope. I accept the ideas of: I will fail, I will offend people, I will hurt people, and life will try to hurt me*. Oh, well. I choose to stay committed to the Lord and not keen to what may offend me.
I will also love people well and build community around honor and generosity. What I leave behind as my legacy will be greater than my mistakes.
*I certainly do not intend to hurt anyone or be hurt. But, that’s life. We hurt each other. Thank the Lord for grace and kindness and forgiveness.
