Deciding Between What We Know and What We Feel

This is such a great subject to send to the archives just yet. So I thought I would attempt to add a few more insights and verses today. This subject is close to my heart, but even closer to the reality of my daily personal struggles. And despite my biased assumption that I have mastered my emotional chaos, the facts tell a different story. How I respond, react, and plan mostly depends on what I am feeling at the time. I would like to grow more solid in my emotional life by resting and grounding myself in the truth - trusting what I know rather than what I feel.

I think this subject can get slightly confusing because emotions are so unexplainably varied. At times our emotions align with the truth, and other times they are opposite. It can get tricky. Thankfully, God's Word talks clearly on this subject by offering personal examples and solid principles. God wants us to know His heart on this.

Psalms 22 is a great illustration and provides tender help for this topic. In the following verses, David is struggling emotionally, but continues to keep a steady trust in God, letting his knowledge of God dictate his responses and commitment.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In You our fathers trusted; they trusted, and You delivered them. To You they cried and were rescued; in You they trusted and were not put to shame." (Ps. 22:1-5)

David is trusting in Truth rather than his feelings. It evidently feels like God has abandoned him. He cries day and night and yet nothing is happening, God is not answering. But David doesn't let this mere emotional destitution to cause him to forsake or distrust God. David goes back to the truth: God has not forsaken him, just as God did not forsake the people before him who trusted in the Lord. David is sincerely honest about what he is feeling, and then there is the "yet". Let this be a sample for our prayers: "God, I feel destitute and forsaken. Yet I know You are near, You are here, and You will help. I believe that."

This is called aligning our emotions with the truth.

It gets even worse for David before this Psalm ends. The people around him start to mock David's faith in the Lord and God Himself. Now two sources are pointing out God's absence: David's emotions and the outside world. This is where it gets hard. This is where faithfulness above feelings comes into painful practice.

"But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; “He trusts in the Lord; let Him deliver him; let Him rescue him, for He delights in him!” Yet you are He who took me from the womb; You made me trust You at my mother's breasts." (Ps. 22:6-9)

It comes down to what we trust: feelings or the truth about Jesus. Life can seem to confirm God's absence, but that simply isn't true. God declares over and over again, "I am here. I am with you." (Josh. 1:9, Heb.13:5, Ps. 73:23) Our job is to trust that He is telling the truth, because... He is.  David closes with this:

"You who fear the Lord, praise Him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify Him, and stand in awe of Him, all you offspring of Israel! For He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and He has not hidden His face from him, but has heard, when he cried to Him." (Ps. 22:23-24)