Emotions and Faith
June 29, 2009 | by Stefan Slonevskiy | Category: Devotions
SOMEONE says, “I have tried to live a consistent Christian life, and yet I am not what I wish.”
Perhaps you live too much in your feelings, too little in your will. We have no direct control over our feelings, but we have over our will. God does not hold us responsible for what we feel, but for what we will. Let us, therefore, not live in the summer house of emotion, but in the central citadel of the will, wholly yielded and devoted to the will of God.
At the table of the Lord the soul is often suffused with holy emotion; the tides rise high; the tumultuous torrents of joy knock loudly against the floodgates as if to beat them down, and every element in the nature joins in the choral hymn of rapturous praise. But the morrow comes and life has to be faced in the grim office, the dingy shop, the noisy factory, the godless workroom; and as the soul compares the joy of yesterday with the difficulty experienced in walking humbly with the Lord, it is inclined to question whether it is quite so devoted and consecrated as it was. But at such a time, how fair a thing it is to remark that the will has not altered its position by a hair’s breadth, and to look up and say, “My God, the springtide of emotion has passed away like a summer brook; but in my heart of hearts, in my will, Thou knowest I am as devoted, as loyal, as desirous to be only for Thee as in the blessed moment of unbroken retirement at Thy feet.” This is an offering with which God is well pleased. And thus we may live a calm, peaceful life.
–F.B.Meyer, “The Blessed Life”
