More Than Feelings

A few months ago I was speaking at a banquet where I met a precious young woman in her early twenties. She sheepishly made her way over to me with tears welling up in her eyes. She looked around before she whispered, “I don’t feel saved. I have asked Jesus to be my Savior more times than I can count, but I just don’t feel anything. What am I doing wrong?” She wasn’t doing anything wrong.

She was just looking in the wrong direction. She was looking for some magical feeling to swoop across the broken places of her life and instantly make everything feel different. That’s not the way it works.

We can’t look to our feelings to determine truth. We must look to truth to rein in our feelings.

Feelings are fickle. Feelings change on a whim. Feelings are paper thin and incapable of remaining untainted, unbiased, and unchanging. Faith can’t be built on what we do or do not feel.

Truth, on the other hand, is stable, solid, and certain.

In the kindest way, I bossed her feelings with some truth. “You said you believe Jesus is the Savior, and you’ve confessed that with your mouth. You’ve asked Him to be the Lord of your life and for forgiveness of your sins. Right?”

She nodded, her eyes glistening with sincerity.

“Then park your mind, your heart, and your feelings on that truth and by the power of Jesus reject any lie that comes against that truth. You are saved. You are a child of God. You are eternally secure. Now, walk in that truth.”

A wave of relief swept over her face. She threw her arms around me and buried her face in my jacket. I knew she was getting a little snot on my shoulder, and I could not have cared less.

I was too busy letting my own little sermonette make its way to my heart. I hadn’t been doubting my salvation, but I had been doubting something else. I had been feeling afraid about releasing the message of Made to Crave.

After all, you can mess with a lot in a woman’s life, but if you start messing with her food — that’s grounds for serious irritation.

What if people didn’t feel like embracing the message? What if people didn’t feel like changing? What if it was just my issue and no one else really needed this message? What if people read it and remained unaffected and unchanged? What if I started backsliding in this area and made God look bad?

We can’t look to our feelings to determine truth. We must look to truth to rein in our feelings.

I whispered these words over and over and over until they reached those raw places of insecurity deep in my soul.

Even if every single one of those feelings came to pass—people rejected the message and I gained my weight back — it wouldn’t change or negate the absolute truths in the message. And it certainly wouldn’t make God look bad. God doesn’t build the stability of His identity on the fragile choices of His children. He just keeps placing the truth in front of us and offers to lead us to His best — over and over and over.