More than a feeling

Talia Biel is a member at Crossroads Church. She is a sincere Jesus follower with a gift for connecting her faith to real life, and for sharing that through her writing.  Check out her blog “Holding On To Faith.

I grew up in love with the country way of life . It started off with listening to famous country artists such as Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley, Reba Mcentire and so on. When I first started high school, I was the one that owned every Taylor Swift CD there was. Most of my friends came from big cities, and never understood the small country girl that I was. How I would pick four wheeling over parties, how I would go fishing in the pond instead of dating boys, and how I spent most of time sitting outside covered in mud and dirt. Something about the air, the scenery and the trucks. From Dodge to Fords, to Chevy. I loved the country. 

This morning, I woke with the deepest inclination to go to the country of Warkworth which is the town my grandma lived in when she was alive.

We packed of course the camera, and went on our way. Just an ordinary Saturday.

Though it’s through the ordinariness of my life that I am really starting to see the presence of God wherever I go.

Hence I said see, and not feel because today I am basing His presence on ‘more than a feeling.’

I say that because many times we just want to “feel” that God is close by, and I am starting to realize that it’s much more than an act of “feeling.” There are going to be many times in life where our emotions are running high, and we will feel that God is distant and not close by, but just because we don’t feel Him there, doesn’t mean He isn’t there.

Sometimes, our emotions can be the very thing that prevents us from being in that closeness relationship with the Creator that we wish to have.

Faith is more than a feeling.

Don’t get me wrong, emotions are not wrong. In fact, they are a good thing but if they control you, you will find yourself always chasing and seeking and never in a place of contentment. We all live in a “feeling driven” culture. What I am sensing God say to me is that He is much more than that. (As I am writing this more than a feeling by Boston keeps playing over and over in my head).

Our feelings, more than anything else, drive the decisions we make from the TV shows we watch to the churches we choose to attend to the people we choose to associate ourselves with.

The question is whether or not that’s a bad thing. I mean, aren’t we emotional creatures? Made in His image? Given these feelings as a part of that image? The answer to those questions is yes, and yet there’s a problem we must face when it comes to the issue of growing and trying to go deeper in Christ.

The problem with being pulled along by feelings is that our feelings, like all other parts of ourselves, have been corrupted by sin and are in need of the redemption that can only come through Jesus. That is why our lives should be more than our feelings, it should bedriven by faith.

Faith. Then action. Then feelings. And slowly, by God’s grace, the length of chain that connects all those things together gets shorter and shorter. As we grow with Him, we find that our feelings are actually coming closer to faith.

In the country today, I really saw the presence of God, and I felt it too. The amazing thing is even when I don’t feel Him there with me, I know He is still in the presence of the wind, and that He saves me from my sin. I know He is much more than a feeling. He is King.

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