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!