In the comfort of a safe and discreet space, some believers expressed that they feel they’re simply going through the motions of the faith. Some said that they are not experiencing the blessings of spiritual growth as they did years ago. One person even said, “I’m at a standstill, and I don’t know why I’m continuing to be a Christian.” For many of us, our first experience with Jesus Christ was overwhelmingly emotional. The warmth of his love entered our hearts for the first time, and we knew something within had changed. Our emotions were a marker in our lives of our spiritual rebirth. The problem is that many of us have continued to look to emotions and feelings as indicators of our spiritual standing in Christ. This has placed emotions, and not faith, in the driver’s seat of our relationship with God.
Life is all about relationships, and most of us understand on a very basic level that relationships are a two-way street. There’s some give and take, and this kind of reciprocity builds trust, deepens communication, and strengthens loyalty as well as the bond of unity. God teaches us this very early on, in the Book of Genesis, with Adam and Eve. He gave them life, created a wonderful habitation for them, and then He gave them specific instructions regarding how to walk in fellowship and relationship with Him. Adam and Eve had the responsibility to respond to God’s provisions and care. God’s expectation was that they’d be obedient and thankful for all He had done.
God didn’t make this complicated. It was very simple. All they needed to do was enjoy God’s blessing and respond to Him in a way that proved their gratitude and reverence for God’s sovereignty and omnipotence. Heavenly Father created and provided every detail necessary for our relationship with Him. He set the boundaries, and He created us in such a way that we could follow and maintain them. He left nothing to chance, but Adam and Eve were tempted by satan and began to question God’s sovereignty and omnipotence. They were tricked into questioning His love and began to think that His love was not enough. We should not make this same mistake.
God is the Giver, and we are the recipients. Our acceptable and required response to Him of gratitude and faith will never change. We must recognize that we cannot label our disappointment in life as being disappointed in the faith. The two are not the same. We are required by God to stretch beyond our comfort zones by believing and trusting Him greater. This means that our motivations, aspirations, and goals in life must shift. As life progresses, so should our faith, but often this isn’t the case.
We become disillusioned or bored with life when our conditions and circumstances do not change. Perhaps our interpersonal relationships have grown stale, or maybe our finances have not increased. It could be that we are disappointed because we’re not seeing others that we love come into the faith and mature spiritually as we had hoped. With situations like these, we can relate to King Solomon in the Old Testament when he said in Ecclesiastes 1:2-4,8-9(NLT), “2 “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” 3 What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. 8 Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content. 9 History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.”
Solomon was the wisest man that has ever lived. He studied everything in life that was available to study during his time. He tried the worst of living and the best, and he wasn’t satisfied by either. In Ecclesiastes 1:17-18(NLT), “17 So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind. 18 The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.” King Solomon lived in regal adornment with every possible amenity and luxury available in his time, but he was discontent and dissatisfied. He had been exhaustive in his search for meaningfulness in life and was very disappointed by his findings.
Finally, coming to his senses, Solomon realized in Ecclesiastes 2:24-25(NLT), “24 So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. 25 For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?” It’s the simple things. God didn’t make it complicated, but we do. When we take our eyes off the prize, we no longer value it’s worth or seek after it’s reward. This happens when we cease to pursue and deepen our intimacy with Heavenly Father. Nothing in life works right when we lose the joy of just walking with Him. He is the Creator of all that we survey, and He wants a relationship with us. We must recognize that this will forever and always be infinitely more than enough.
Jesus Christ has made us righteous before God and we are now accepted by Him. This is beyond spectacular. Regardless of our feelings, our standing in Christ is etched in stone by the Father. So, there isn’t anything in life that is livelier than our faith in God. Its continual infusion of vision and believing is our responsibility. When life feels stale,
Life is meant to be a close and intimate walk with God for the benefit of our own spiritual growth and development. If we try to step outside this and make life something it wasn’t ordained by God to be, we’re going to be dissatisfied and disillusioned. God knows His plans for us. He knows the purpose for which we were born. He knows what we should do, how we should do it, and when we should do it. Our best course of action is always to do as Christ commanded and seek God first.
Feelings come and go, but the standing God has given us through Christ is eternal. Yes, there will be seasons where we feel stale and forgotten, where we lack the zeal we once had. Even this, our lack of enthusiasm and pessimism, must be yielded to God. Quite often, this is the greatest test of our faith. He can fix our conditions and circumstances if we are willing to walk through them with Him. Allowing God this room to be at work in our lives requires patience. It requires us to ask questions and to be patient as He answers. Our Heavenly Father will always divinely guide us and on this we can depend. He’ll reveal new mercies every morning if we are willing to trust His love and our standing in Christ more than we trust our emotions.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyn`dale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
“The Difference between Your Feelings and Your Standing”, written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!