The Feelings Trap

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Psalm 42:5

I am more than a bit perplexed about the whole emotions debacle. It may seem overly simplistic but the reality is that emotions usually don't seem to be helpful. God gave us emotions, and undoubtedly for a reason, yet they seem to be the thing that keep us from steadily gazing at Jesus more often than not. I'm not sure how to reconcile this. I suppose it's back to basics. Fact, faith and feelings. Facts are the engine, faith is the car, and feelings are the caboose. It seems like the message that my generation (and those after me) have received is a message that the feelings are an instrument to judge truth, fact or reality. Thus, statements such as "I just don't feel like that's true" are actually seriously considered in certain discussions. Using our feelings to evaluate truth is like using a plastic ruler to determine the temperature of the sun. I suppose you could figure out that the sun is hot enough to melt the ruler, but that wouldn't be much information towards finding out how many degrees the sun is. That's not what feelings are for.

Thus, when David confronts his depression he quickly goes back to the place where he can put his faith in the facts and let that dictate his actions, not allowing the emotional highs and lows run the show. There are things that I notice that can always affect my feelings making them extremely unreliable: enough sleep, enough food, enough rest, enough quiet time, offhanded comments, the entertainment I take in, the situations of my loved ones, my general health at the moment, and a hoard of other things that make me think that my feelings are nearly useless if I want to use them to determine my perception of reality (much as my laptop would be useless for driving in nails). But when I look at Jesus my emotions fall into line. I am thankful again, I am full again. I see the emotions that are uplifting and true. Through this view (Facts, Faith leading the act) emotions suddenly snap into line and become valuable, wonderful and profitable. Not to say that they are always happy and cheerful at this point, but the sorrow that is felt does not overcome, and the compassion felt is not hopeless and the joy felt is not the fleeting "sugar high" feeling of the moments of happy emotional states brought about by pleasant earthly circumstances. Things are more real on this level. And I am calm again.