Feelings vs. Truth
It is no secret that girls are emotional. We are often chastised for it, told to be quiet, and left feeling as though our emotions are invalid or childish. On one hand, feelings are good, God-given gifts. (Girls just usually happen to be more in touch with theirs than boys!) But, as great as our emotions can be in coloring our lives and helping us understand what is going on in our souls, our emotions can also be dangerous. We are told to “listen to our hearts,” but the Bible makes it clear that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
Listening only to how we feel and making our emotions lord of our lives is most dangerous when we take our feelings and hold them up as the ultimate truth. When we let our emotions decide who God is, that is when we can get into trouble. Let me explain what I mean: There are days when I wake up and feel like my Father doesn’t love me, days I don’t feel beautiful, days I don’t feel like praying or worshiping, days where I don’t feel like God is good.
Do my ever-changing human emotions change who God is? Do Jesus’s feelings toward me change based on how I feel about Him? No, absolutely not! He is constant.
When we have these feelings about God, we have to reject them. It can even happen when we are reading the Word and something feels like it’s a lie! How many times have you read something like Romans 8:1 which says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” and think, “Well, that’s not true for me. Maybe for someone else, but not me”? I think it happens more than we realize!
My feelings are not God. God is God. My feelings do not define truth. God’s word defines truth. My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives, and sometimes--many times--my feelings are out of sync with the truth. When that happens....I plead with God: Purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.” -John Piper
We get so used to following our feelings rather than Christ that it becomes natural to reject real truth for what we feel is true in the moment. The Enemy can be so convincing -- whispering lies to us that seem so much like truth.But when we listen to him, we build muscle memory of believing lies that separate us from Christ. So when the storm comes, we are tossed back and forth rather than being firmly grounded in our Rock, who is immovable.
It can be a difficult process of unlearning all the lies that have been ingrained into our hearts. We begin this by diving into the Word and learning what is actually true. We saturate ourselves in what God says about us until we are full. When we are full, we continue to dive in so that it becomes second nature to recognize the Enemy’s lies. Finally, we ask the Holy Spirit to help us discover what lies we believe. When the Enemy starts whispering to us, we’ll be able to fight him with the truth and he will have no choice but to flee.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” -John 8:31-32
Believing lies can be comfortable if that’s all we’ve ever known. I promise that once you begin to walk in what is really true, your life will change. You will find joy and abundance and a thriving relationship with Jesus. He is the ultimate truth and He promises to guide you into all truth.
How do you battle the lies in your head? Share in the comments below!