Hey friends. Couple of words on feelings for today:
Faith is not a feeling.
Now that is a big realization, one that took me a REALLY long time to get. Honestly, I spent a majority of my life trying to “feel” God. I spent years trying to feel close to God, feel like God is pleased, feel like I’m doing the right thing —
Feel feel feel.
And you know what? That was exhausting.
Literally exhausting. And also very unsustainable. Because here’s the thing, you can’t always feel God. You can’t feel faith. Now, I know, there are some moments where you feel God’s presence, truly. You feel His immense peace, this comfort that God is indeed right with you…
And then the very next day, you feel nothing.
Does that mean there’s something wrong with you?
If your answer to that question was yes, I have great news for you.
There is nothing wrong with you when you don’t feel God.
I repeat, there is nothing wrong with you when you don’t feel God.
There is nothing wrong when you don’t feel the brush of Angel’s wings after you pray. There is nothing wrong with you when you don’t feel God right at your side.
Because the truth is, He is right at your side, whether you feel Him or not! But here’s the thing; you can’t live your whole life by feelings. Because a lot of times, your feelings are wrong.
C’mon. We’ve all been there. We’ve all had the feeling that something is crawling on us after seeing a bunch of spiders or insects somewhere. And more often than not, there isn’t anything on you. You only feel like there is.
Friend, we can’t base our faith on what we feel. A lot of times, I think we get discouraged because we don’t feel the promise. God tells us something, and we want to feel it. We want to feel Heaven shaking and we want to feel this unshakeable knowing in our gut, we want to feel --
But that’s not faith. Faith says, “No matter what I feel, no matter what I see, I’m going to believe.”
Here’s another example: I can’t feel my salvation. I know I’m saved because I believe I’m saved.
Well Rachel, how do you know?
Because God said that if I call on the name of The Lord, I will be saved. That if I believe in my heart and confess with my mouth, then I’ll have salvation.
Do I feel saved all the time?
No.
First off, it’s not a feeling I’m chasing after. I was given a promise to receive by faith. Now I have had many times where I didn’t “feel” saved, so I tried to get resaved. But you can’t be resaved! Once you’re saved, you’re saved! (Woo hoo!) The truth didn’t change. My feelings changed. So for a really long time, I was asking for something that I already had.
Friend, don’t go by feelings. Go by faith. Going by feelings is exhausting. You can feel many things throughout a day and if you follow every feeling you will be misled. Go by faith. Go by what God says. If God says it, then it is true. He cannot lie. Literally. God can’t lie. Which is really good news for us, because if He promised us something, then He meant it.
Friend, whatever God promised you, spoke to you, He meant it. Whatever God promised you, receive it by faith. Don’t wait to feel something to believe it. Don’t wait to see something to believe it. Because seeing and feeling isn’t faith; if you can feel it and see it, then you don’t need faith.
Have faith. Believe what God promised you. And you won’t be disappointed — your Heavenly Father doesn’t know how to disappoint you.