Having Faith in Your Feels
Jesse has spent the majority of his life near the tip of Lake Superior. He attended North Central University in downtown Minneapolis for 3 years, and is currently a youth pastor at a local church in Duluth, called Duluth Gospel Tabernacle. His calling and passion is that the next generation would know Jesus and be prepared to rise up and lead the church one day. He also really enjoys playing instruments, shooting hoops and spending quality time with his beautiful wife, Brittany.
Check your pulse real quick. Take a look in a mirror. Still human? What a relief.. me too! If you’re human, that means you process life through emotions. Highs and lows, and everything in between. These feelings can be confusing at times and other times they help make sense of life. But where do feelings fit into our faith? Or do they? Do we have faith in spite of our feelings? I invite you into my journey of looking at how our feelings actually fit into our faith in Jesus.
In case you aren’t aware, we live in the age of emotional awareness. It’s all about the vibes and being in your feels. I know this first hand, as a 25 year old, but I also know it from the perspective of being a youth pastor who spends a lot of time with Gen Z. The general feel of a situation, interaction or event has an enormous sway in how young people generally view that activity. It’s about the experience, and if the experience doesn’t have a certain feel to it - they might call it cringe. You don’t want to hear them call you cringe..! In all seriousness, I admire and relate to this sense of emotional awareness and its effect on us as humans. It’s consistent through the focus Gen Z has had on being vocal about mental health, anxiety and depression. I do believe an emphasis on our feelings has pros and cons.
We need to also know that it can be dangerous to over-value our feelings. One of the best nuggets of wisdom I’ve been told is that feelings are not fact. Without going into all of the science behind our emotions, our emotions are a physical reaction (in our head) to what’s happening in life. We have some control at the helm of our emotions, but many times they’re derived out of our past experiences - or even our genetic make-up. Sometimes, our feelings speak lies to us. Our reaction to a situation is, exactly that, a reaction - not reality. We have a tendency to get caught up in our feelings too much and not see reality clearly! This is evident by how different we may see things after our emotions die down.
This isn’t a new dilemma, actually. (What is.. really? Check out Ecc. 1:9)
If you’ve ever read through more than a few Psalms, you’ll learn that David was in his feels.. often. There might even be verses you read and ask yourself, ‘did they really put this in the bible?’ David didn’t hold back his feelings - and I think that’s an example we should take seriously. One thing that having faith as a Christian isn’t.. is totally ignoring/bottling up the way we actually feel. This leads to numerous problems and isn’t part of the gospel, although the church (in general) has probably done a poor job at communicating that in the past. Here’s what David wrote:
Psalm 6:3,6-7
My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long? .. I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes group weak with sorrow, they fail because of all my foes.
Psalm 13:1-5
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorry in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
What does this show us? First, it shows us that it’s okay to get caught up in your feelings a bit. If I may be so bold - it’s even okay to not be okay. David was not okay in these verses. There’s no shame in having to admit we are human and have struggles! Again, it’s part of the human experience. God created us to experience the highs and lows of emotion, and I’m so glad he did! He wanted us to experience fullness and beauty through our feelings. He didn’t create us to be emotionless robots - even though he could have, had he chosen to.
The important follow-up point to it being okay to not be okay is that God doesn’t want us to dwell/stay there. This is the tough part. It’s when we have to tell ourselves that our feelings are NOT fact. Most importantly, it’s the part where it’s crucial to stay rooted in Jesus, so that when we’re in our feelings - our cornerstone is set in place & our truth is reliable. It’s then that God wants us to use our feelings and pivot them! Watch how David finishes both of the first passages I listed above..
Psalm 6:8-10
Away from me, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping. The Lord has heard my cry from mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer. All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish; they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame.
Psalm 13:6
But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.
C’mon! That is so good! We don’t have faith in spite of our feelings, but God uses our feelings to feed our faith. When we are open to God and others about our feelings, He pivots us in a way that takes our emotional momentum and uses it for His glory. In fact, I believe some of the absolute-best and most influential worship lyrics ever written were inspired by the Holy Spirit working through David’s anguish in the Psalms. So, when you’re in your feels, whether good or bad, let that be the place where you also give your most powerful and authentic worship to God.
