FAITH versus FEELINGS

Talk is cheap. Almost everyone appears to have an opinion of what faith is or is not. While some are masters at theory and rhetoric, others lay claim to the fact that they practice faith more than they can explain it. However, both categories share a common virtue – they mix up faith and feelings. For instance, some people equate faith with a perpetual religious high. When that high wears off, as it inevitably does, they start to doubt whether they have any faith at all. To be sure, feelings are connected with some dimensions of faith, but a lot of that has to do with people’s temperaments. Some folks are just not wired to feel very much, even though they may have strong values and convictions.

We need to be careful about our feelings – they can be fickle. We could be emotionally up and down, and it doesn’t mean it is a fluctuation of faith. Consider this. A man once told a Counsellor, “I don’t like my wife anymore”. The Counsellor replied, “Go home and love her”. But he said, “You don’t understand – I have no feelings for her anymore”. “I wasn’t asking how you felt,” said the Counsellor, “I was saying, ‘Go home and love her’”. They guy then said, “But it would be emotionally dishonest for me to treat my wife that way when I don’t feel it.”

So the Counsellor asked him, “Does your mother love you?” That seemed to insult him. He said, “Yeah, of course.” “About 3 weeks after she had brought you home from the hospital and you were screaming with dirty diapers and she had to wake up dog-tired, put her bare feet on the cold floor, clean up your miserable diapers and feed you a bottle. Did you think she was really excited doing that?” asked the Counsellor. “No”, she replied. “Well then, I think your mother was being emotionally dishonest.” Gbam! End of Discussion!!

In one of his sermons, Charles H. Spurgeon, a prominent 19^th century preacher, counseled thus: There are some who fancy that faith cometh by feeling. If they could feel emotions either of horror or of exquisite delight, they would think they are possessors of faith; but till they have felt what they have heard described in certain biographies of undoubtedly good men, they cannot believe, or even if they have a measure of faith, they cannot hope that it is true faith.

"Faith does not come by feeling, but through faith arises much of holy feeling, and the more a man lives in the walk of faith, as a rule, the more will he feel and enjoy the light of God’s countenance. Faith hath something firmer to stand upon than those ever-changing feelings which, like the weather of our own sunless land, is fickle and frail, and changeth speedily from brightness into gloom. You may get feeling from faith, and the best of it, but you will be long before you will find any faith that is worth the having, if you try to evoke it from feelings."

With an air of finality, Smith Wigglesworth declares, “I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe.”

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