Feelings, Moods, Conviction, Truth and Peace – Part 1

Finally, brethren…Think on these things. Php 4:8

Can A Person Feel Nothing?

There is one fate which is the curse of sensitive people.

In the matter of feelings, they invariably tend toward two extremes: they feel too much, or they don’t feel anything at all.

Ok. Perhaps there is a middle ground. They feel less.

And it shows.

Is that indifference?

Is it rude?

What if that is the way I am?

I mean, I was born that way?

Can I do something about it?

These are the questions people ask about their character.

They believe, they even boast, that they can do nothing about it.

But a person can change.

That is the meaning of a new birth.

Being born again also means dying to our old nature.

But let me not digress!

Vacillations

For the whole of this month I have studied about feelings; my own feelings in particular.

Why do I have bad moods?

Why do they occur?

What triggers them?

I have caught myself shouting.

I thought I had changed.

I know I used to have a foul mood.

No expletives, thank God. I have never had the courage to utter a four-letter word.

For others it comes so easily.

I almost envied them.

The book of psalms is a book of crying.

It shudders with tears.

But in between the tone changes to that of hope.

David asks God to examine him. “Search me, O God, and know my heart.”

That is a cry.

David asks God to put his tears in a bottle.

Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? Psa 56:8 

When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me. Psa 56:9  

Moods can change the face and heart. 

They can make it sing, or they can make it shrivel.

Moods can build a home, or they can shatter it.

Nevertheless moods are only a fleeting emotion.

They can swing from one pole to another.

It is God alone who makes our moods stable.

Thus saith the LORD unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's. 2Ch 20:15b

The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. Exo 14:14  

If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, now may Israel say; 

If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when men rose up against us: 

Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: 

Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul. Psa 124:1-4  

The Psalms are our thought bank.

We go to them to cash our worries there. “Cast your cares upon me.”

Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah. Psa 62:8 

Now on a light note, let’s go back to that question.

Can a person feel nothing?

My mom thinks so.

I saw this clearly in the year I lost my grandfather many years ago.

When I received the news, I received it so calmly, my calmness shook her.

“Your grandfather has just died, and you don’t show anything?”

Her shock was written on her face.

I guess she searched my face and saw nothing!

She wanted to see shock.

Probably she wanted to see tears too.

She wanted to hear a word, may be, which might have calmed her.

But I said nothing.

And that bothered her more than the news she had just received.

I made it worse.

I went back to my work as a bus driver!

Later that evening I went to the pub as usual.

We laughed and had the usual banter.

Later I told them about my grandfather’s death.

They took it calmly only as drunk men can.

“It was his time.”

“We shall all die.”

“People die every day.”

After about two years had passed this scene replayed itself in my consciousness.

It shocked me of course.

It ranked of callousness.

And for the first time I mourned my grandfather “proper”.

After two years.

I cried profusely.

I was alone in bed (and drunk).

But I doubt I should’ve cried like that if there was someone watching me!

The happy thing is that we have a God who we can take everything to him in prayer, including when we feel nothing.

For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Rom 8:20-23  

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 

And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Rom 8:26-27 

In the end, concerning the question of my mom and I, I summoned reason to my defense.

Grandpa was a good man, yes?

Yes.

He had died, yes?

Yes.

What more could I have done?

It was a cold clinical analysis.

But that was before I got saved!

 

 The New Song of Zion

For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. Psa 137:3  

Thoughts by the River Bank

Sometimes it is not just the water flowing under the bridge. Sometimes a river is a memory album.

It is a time capsule.

Conversations are fleeting.

Songs are hewn in the heart by the scythe of time.

They are the visceral cups we drink from.

“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (Joh 4:14).  

By the Rivers of Babylon

First, this singer wasn't home.

He missed it. It wasn’t just the body which pined. Even his soul was famished.

God had given them the true drink once.

But they disdained it as they chased broken cisterns.

Babylon can never replace the true home, no matter how glamorous and chic it looks.

Sin always takes one far from home, and one never truly arrives. There is always another corner to turn; another bridge and river to cross.

But one never arrives.

God is Good all the Time

It wasn’t God who was bad.

It was their heart.

It wasn’t God who oppressed them.

It was sin.

So they wept.

When they remembered home.

Home carried the memory of the Father.

And that is always heavier.

“Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, 

And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.” 

They wept, because of memory.

Even a palace can begin to feel like a jail when the soul hasn’t got something hard to steady it against the currents.

Home was where songs held meaning.

Home is where God is, where daily prayer is, and where the harvest is. Home is where the fire never goes out.

Home is where even the ashes hold meaning.

“How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land?” (Psa 137:4).  

 The Pilgrim Travels Light

A song has to come from the heart, it is vain to force it.

It is God who gives songs, the lasting songs.

I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Exo 20:2-3  

The soul craves stability, not uncertainty.

It requires stillness, not chaos.

It requires a fixed mark, a single life, and not numberless.

A single decision.

A single pursuit.

A single purpose.

Heaviness sets in in a purposeless life.

But we are not of Babylon, of many gods, many purposes, and many sorrows.

When Love Will Not Let Go

If sin oppresses, the love of God even more.

We shall not take their little ones and dash them against the stones.

But that was then.

Not so now.

Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Mat 5:43-45  

Sin oppresses to kill.

Love oppresses, so it might save.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. Isa 53:3-5

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Joh 3:16  

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Rom 8:32 

Thank you, God, for Babylon.

Yes, if sin oppresses, the love of God even more.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. 

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. Son 8:6-7  

At home we can grow at ease.

We can be soaked in the familiar scent until we can smell nothing strange.

Babylon opens the eyes.

They did not just see God clearly, but (perhaps for the first time in their lives) they saw themselves much clearly. “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jer 29:13).  

Babylon has a purpose.

River banks have a purpose.

We just have to sit there and see it.

And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; 

And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. Rev 5:9-10  

And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. 

And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: 

And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. Rev 14:1-3  

Heaven is close now.

Let all the saints march in proudly carrying their banners.

 It Takes God to Grow A Man

 Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. 1Co 16:13  

Watch Ye

Behaving like a man every day is not easy. There are days when it can feel like a cruel joke. Days when it feels like it's over. Days when the soil starts to drift back to the ocean.

 And it is exactly in such moments that the believer is called to be on guard, to watch ye.

It is an encouragement. It is an exhortation.

Watch ye. Take care. Consider.

It is not a call to overthink. Or to worry.

It is a call to cast your cares upon God.

For we cannot be a man (or woman) after God’s heart without him.

 Christ said “Without me ye can do nothing.”

And every day, every morning, and every evening we are invited to be a witness to that truth.

It may be in a faint sigh, or a joint growing stiff, or the silence darkening the room.

 But the amazing thing is that God always proves himself faithful in the end.

Always.

Watch Ye

It is a cooperation.

He gives the word and we act on it.

Watch.

Look.

Remember.

Because the devil prowls about waiting to devour.

To devour means to tear. It is a merciless attack.

And the devil is doing that every day.

He wrests, he twists, he accuses.

Resist him.

But how do we resist a spirit?

He is your enemy.

Call him out.

Remind him who you are, where you are, and how you are.

You are the son and daughter of a living God.

Rejoice always. Count it all joy, wherever, and however you are.

Resist being dragged into despair. Cast out the melancholy face. Overwhelm him with your praises for your God.

Watch Ye

Watch out for distractions.

The devil will distract you.

The world will distract you.

Your own flesh will distract you.

Be circumspect.

Because you are sanctified.

Chosen.

Set apart.

Called to be a saint.

Travel light. Take a walk in eternity.

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Heb 12:1-3  

Stand fast in the faith

Is anything too hard for the Lord?

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 1Co 15:58  

Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Col 2:6  

If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister. Col 1:23

  

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Eph 4:14  

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind. Eph 4:17  

Quit you like a man

Yes you are a man.

You are also a child of God.

A man.

But a child.

It is in that synthesis that he makes us men and women after himself.

Be strong.

Be courageous.

Be strong and of a good courage. Jos 1:6 

Only be thou strong and very courageous. Jos 1:7 

He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Isa 40:29  

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Isa 41:10  

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. 

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. 2Co 4:7-9 

Pain will happen. Let it not distract you.

Suffering is a must on this side of heaven.

That is not strange.

Rather rejoice.

You are not hated but loved.

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 

If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 

But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 

Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? Heb 12:5-9

Now drown that pain with praise!

Watch ye.

Stand fast.

Quit yourself like a man.

Be strong.