about tendencies of the heart

I've been trying to wrap my mind around feelings.
More specifically, I've been trying to suss out why I think it is important both to honor your feelings AND to honor the Lord - something that can often seem impossible to do simultaneously.

My emotional health as a Christian is something that many conversations with friends, long scribbled notes in my journal, and the written words of both the bible and people far wiser than myself have led me to ponder.  As an individual, I find it important.  As a Church, I find it crucial.

Tonight, here's just a few thoughts.  Perhaps more later.

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I believe that God is unchanging.  I believe that he is the same yesterday as he was today and as he will be tomorrow. I believe that he is a rock, a solid foundation.  I believe that he is immoveable, certain, and true.

I, on the other hand, am as mutable as can be.
Yesterday I was something and today I am something very new.
Yesterday I felt one way and today I feel the other.

It is this changing that makes it hard sometimes to relate to an eternal God - as a young woman with active emotions, I don't always feel like what is true is actually true.  Do you know what I mean?  One day, I really do feel the deep love and worth of Christ within me.  And on another day I feel self-doubt, fear, and shame.

These sort of contradictions between feelings and truth has proven very complicated for me.  But also important; here's why:
1) my feelings make me aware of how deeply human I am
and 2) my feelings make me aware of the tendencies of my heart.

As I sort through being a human with feelings (this is probably a condition you find yourself in, too) those two revelations have helped me place myself in relation to the Lord who loves and created me.  They remind me (often) that I am not God - how often I feel hopeless, helpless, jealous, lazy, or mad! But they remind me too (I wish more often) that I am in the process of being made new; through the tendency of my heart and the feelings it holds, I have begun to watch myself being sanctified and made more like Christ.

To know your heart and your tendency to feel one way or another is a good and wise thing.  To know your tendency to feel worthless after a disappointment  or hopeless after you fail, or jealous when someone else gets something you want - that is useful information to keep on record.  Because when you find yourself in those similar situations and your feelings change, you become eye-witness to your own renewal.

Feelings, I find, are something I have very little control over changing on my own.  Which is why to know your feelings, pray over them, and have them altered is like experiencing a victory of the Holy Spirit in your life.  There is beauty when you look into your heart and can be surprised at the joy you find there, or at the perseverance and fight, or at the generosity you couldn't muster up to feel on your own.

I do not believe that our feelings are always truth.  Sometimes they reflect truth; sometimes they reflect lies.  They are not constant.  Only God is constant.  But our feelings are important.

They remind us that there is only one God.  And they remind us that He is in the process of making us more like himself.



PS. If you are interested in reading about these things further, friends of mine have recently recommended the book The Emotionally Healthy Church, this blog post, and excerpts on the topic of emotion found in Bread for the Journey, by Henri J.M. Nouwen.