Present with God: In my Feelings

"test everything, hold fast to what is good" -1 Thessalonians 5:21

Our feelings are a flawed indicator of the true nature of things.

Feelings have taken on increasing role in our culture. Feelings drive what we do and say. Feelings determine what we buy and who we marry. Feelings determine our happiness and our emotional health. But when unfiltered through reason and experience and unevaluated through logic and critical thinking, our feelings are a poor guide for the life God intends for us to live.

Paul gives us a simple mantra to take into our feelings-dominated culture: Test Everything. Paul’s challenge is not for us to cut ourselves off from our feelings. In fact, the test-everything lifestyle is a commitment to go deeper into our feelings. Instead of stopping at the feeling itself, we examine it, ask ourselves if it is true, and ask ourselves why we are feeling it.

Instead of stopping at the surface of our changeable emotional state, Paul calls us out into the deep waters of true reality.

To live a life that is free, every feeling we have must be identified, validated and evaluated. We must be honest about what we are feeling, sit with it and evaluate what it feels like and how it is affecting us. Second, we must engage our reason to ask if what we are feeling is true. Third, we must ask if what we are feeling is consistent with God’s word. Fourth, we must ask if acting on our feelings will be consistent with the life Jesus calls us to live.

Our feelings will often deceive us. Being mindfully present with God in our feelings allows him to show us the good in our feelings that we need to hold onto.

Be Present with God

Make some time to be present with God. Thank God for the gift of feelings. Ask him to make himself obvious in your feelings. Ask him to give you insight and wisdom to evaluate and test the things you feel. Ask him to give you the courage to go into your feelings and identify the truth that he wants you to learn from them. Thank him for the way he has made you aware of his presence in this time.

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