When the Feels Take Over

Have you ever had a day where your feelings are just trying to rule the day? Where you know that these feelings are going to get you into trouble but they are just taking over? So you try to tell your feelings to shut up! You try to tell them to get behind you! But telling them off doesn’t work, so you go to God and ask Him what you should do. He gives you an answer and tells you what to do. Then you go to a friend and they confirm what God said. But sometimes we just can’t take an answer for what it is. Have you ever met a person who just cannot take no for an answer? Just because it’s not the answer that they wanted, they just keep asking. The thing about our feelings is that we cannot run away from them. That person that advised you will walk away. That conversation with God will end but your feelings will stay with you and they feel more real, sometimes more important than the conversation you just had and the outcome of it.

In all honesty, regardless of how intense feelings might sometimes be, there is no replacement for obedience. There’s no substitute for it and there’s no half measure about it. When we don’t obey God we say a few things to Him.
                                                Things that disobedience says:
1. I didn’t trust you
2. I thought I knew better
3. My fear of not following my feelings was bigger than my fear of You

Those are some cringe worthy statements, but I’ve realised that even in our disobedience, God is patient with us. That’s why I think that patience is the first describing word for love in the bible (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). Patience is one of the biggest signs of God’s love for us. God is patient with us every day, with every test, with every trial, God is patient with us. Because sometimes we don’t listen and He has to teach us the same lesson over and over again.

When a child is learning their alphabets. You have to do it over and over again. And you have to do it in a way that speaks to the developmental level that they are on. That’s why kids learn the alphabets through a song and not through writing. They do the writing part years later. But the repetition is what does the trick. If you lose patience with that child, they will never learn their alphabets and then they won’t grow to be the person that you envisioned them to be. It’s the same with God. When He created you there was a plan, there was a final product already in mind, a final version of yourself and if God lost patience with you it would mean that He does not want you to become the person that He created you to be, and that would be a lie!!! Psalm 139:16 says that before you were born all the days of your life were written. Nobody wants you to be the person you were created to be more than God.

If God is patient with you, who are you to not be patient with yourself? If God hopes in you so much, who are you to not hope in yourself? Sometimes we’re hard on ourselves. At times for good reason, but if the God of the universe can still be patient with you after you disobeyed and failed the same test 500 times, then it’s time to reconsider.

This week I want to challenge you to really dig deep and find the reasons behind your disobedience. Thank God for His patience. Ask Him to change your heart with regards to obedience, and then ask Him to help you to be patient with yourself and hopeful in your future, because it is He who wrote it all down before you even took your first breath.
                   


I am an Occupational Therapist by profession, but I have many roles that bring meaning to my life. In short, I love people, books and love.

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