Jeremiah 17: 7-10
"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord And whose trust is the Lord. "For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit. "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart I test the mind..”
1 Samuel 16:7
“…..The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (In reference to finding a king for Israel)
Fight for Faith-Part One
I have to confess that right now in my life I am becoming more and more aware of how my faith and my emotions seem to always be on opposite sides and it is disheartening. My faith maybe strong in hard times, but many times my emotions don’t match my faith. Anyone else find themselves in the same situation? Is this what it means sometimes when your flesh and Spirit are at war? If I acted completely out of my faith instead of my emotions or feelings, I believe I could be a valuable instrument to the Lord. I am currently reading two books and God is speaking the same kind of message through both of them. He has a specific way He wants to use me and when He wants to use me and when I forget this and get caught up with doubt and pity, I must push through. My faith must press through my emotions to see God’s goodness. The Screwtape Letters is a scary book to me. CS Lewis, the author, has an uncanny way of showing us in the raw how we can get side tracked from pursuing God. The chapter that God really brought to my attention was on the law of Undulation. Undulation is a rising and falling in waves. Essentially this means that something, let’s say our feelings, go up and down constantly. This would describe me accurately. I hate to admit it, I’d like to say that I am constant in my feelings or my passions or interests, but rather I am constant in changing them. This chapter was important to me because after recently attending my church’s women’s retreat, I came away not encouraged, but rather questioning my purpose and my service to God and to the church. I came away feeling insignificant and useless. This was of course not the intended purpose of the retreat, but God uses what He needs to use to get me to see what I need to see. I admit that for a day I dwelled in self pity and wondered why God wouldn’t do something great in my life and if He did, would I first have to go through some tragedy for it to happen. When I pulled through the self pity, I immersed myself in prayer and journaling. These are always my comforts and way of ‘venting’ to God. I am always amazed how much God reveals to me when I am raw before Him.
So let’s return to why the law of Undulation is so important to me. It gave me a real name to my ‘rising and falling’. CS Lewis describes it as “..thier bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation-the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.”1 Troughs and peaks, that is how I feel. Sometimes I am secure, satisfied with the day, relationships are great and yet the next day I am not feeling pretty and that hinders a good attitude and nothing feels right. I hope some of you are nodding in agreement with me because you also have been there and done that. Oh to my relief I felt that someone could actually explain really well why the ups and downs. God explains this in Luke 6:45 that the heart is deceitful, who can cure it? Yet out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. There is deceit in the heart and yet we are told that we are to hide God’s word in the heart according to Psalm 119:11. This is why David pleads for a clean heart in Psalm 51:10. Clean from sin, from doubt, from anxieties and fear. In the Jeremiah passage in the beginning we see that a man is like a tree planted by streams of water. Pay attention to the emotions that are mentioned, fear and anxiety. It says that blessed is the man who trusts the Lord hence when I trust the Lord I will not fear and be anxious. I think you would agree that it is easier said than done, right? Fear, anxiety, anger, and other emotions come upon us quickly in situations, but it’s when they are upon us that we have to remember who we trust so that our faith will push through them.
Undulation-I have to admit I had never heard of the word until I read it in the book-but it has become my new favorite word. Through the rising and the falling, through the troughs and peaks, my faith must always push and press through whatever emotions and doubts are hindering me from seeing God’s hand right now. My feelings don’t always match my faith, and I admit that my feelings many times dictate my decisions. But it’s really my faith, what I believe and know to be solid truth, that must guide what I do and what I decide. I must fight for my faith despite my own feelings. The struggle of the Spirit and the flesh is very real and I have to deal with it every single day. But I am not alone. The Lord has equipped me with the Holy Spirit and with His scriptures. It is why His word needs to be hidden in our hearts. His word is a weapon and we can’t use what we don’t have. Let us not be complacent with our struggle. Routines and the hustle of everyday cannot allow us to forget that we are being sanctified through the work of the Spirit to resemble God more and more each day. Part of the process is submitting our emotions to the Lord and letting Him use that to increase our faith. My quickness to anger, to fear, to doubt, and to hurt humble me. I am in need of God’s grace and His power every moment. I need to be mindful of my ever changing heart and even though my heart may waver, my trust must be sure and steady in the God who is unchanging.
I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Psalm 119:10-11
1. Lewis, CS The Screwtape Letters. City, State. HarperCollins Publishers. 1942.
"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord And whose trust is the Lord. "For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit. "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart I test the mind..”
1 Samuel 16:7
“…..The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (In reference to finding a king for Israel)
Fight for Faith-Part One
I have to confess that right now in my life I am becoming more and more aware of how my faith and my emotions seem to always be on opposite sides and it is disheartening. My faith maybe strong in hard times, but many times my emotions don’t match my faith. Anyone else find themselves in the same situation? Is this what it means sometimes when your flesh and Spirit are at war? If I acted completely out of my faith instead of my emotions or feelings, I believe I could be a valuable instrument to the Lord. I am currently reading two books and God is speaking the same kind of message through both of them. He has a specific way He wants to use me and when He wants to use me and when I forget this and get caught up with doubt and pity, I must push through. My faith must press through my emotions to see God’s goodness. The Screwtape Letters is a scary book to me. CS Lewis, the author, has an uncanny way of showing us in the raw how we can get side tracked from pursuing God. The chapter that God really brought to my attention was on the law of Undulation. Undulation is a rising and falling in waves. Essentially this means that something, let’s say our feelings, go up and down constantly. This would describe me accurately. I hate to admit it, I’d like to say that I am constant in my feelings or my passions or interests, but rather I am constant in changing them. This chapter was important to me because after recently attending my church’s women’s retreat, I came away not encouraged, but rather questioning my purpose and my service to God and to the church. I came away feeling insignificant and useless. This was of course not the intended purpose of the retreat, but God uses what He needs to use to get me to see what I need to see. I admit that for a day I dwelled in self pity and wondered why God wouldn’t do something great in my life and if He did, would I first have to go through some tragedy for it to happen. When I pulled through the self pity, I immersed myself in prayer and journaling. These are always my comforts and way of ‘venting’ to God. I am always amazed how much God reveals to me when I am raw before Him.
So let’s return to why the law of Undulation is so important to me. It gave me a real name to my ‘rising and falling’. CS Lewis describes it as “..thier bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation-the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.”1 Troughs and peaks, that is how I feel. Sometimes I am secure, satisfied with the day, relationships are great and yet the next day I am not feeling pretty and that hinders a good attitude and nothing feels right. I hope some of you are nodding in agreement with me because you also have been there and done that. Oh to my relief I felt that someone could actually explain really well why the ups and downs. God explains this in Luke 6:45 that the heart is deceitful, who can cure it? Yet out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. There is deceit in the heart and yet we are told that we are to hide God’s word in the heart according to Psalm 119:11. This is why David pleads for a clean heart in Psalm 51:10. Clean from sin, from doubt, from anxieties and fear. In the Jeremiah passage in the beginning we see that a man is like a tree planted by streams of water. Pay attention to the emotions that are mentioned, fear and anxiety. It says that blessed is the man who trusts the Lord hence when I trust the Lord I will not fear and be anxious. I think you would agree that it is easier said than done, right? Fear, anxiety, anger, and other emotions come upon us quickly in situations, but it’s when they are upon us that we have to remember who we trust so that our faith will push through them.
Undulation-I have to admit I had never heard of the word until I read it in the book-but it has become my new favorite word. Through the rising and the falling, through the troughs and peaks, my faith must always push and press through whatever emotions and doubts are hindering me from seeing God’s hand right now. My feelings don’t always match my faith, and I admit that my feelings many times dictate my decisions. But it’s really my faith, what I believe and know to be solid truth, that must guide what I do and what I decide. I must fight for my faith despite my own feelings. The struggle of the Spirit and the flesh is very real and I have to deal with it every single day. But I am not alone. The Lord has equipped me with the Holy Spirit and with His scriptures. It is why His word needs to be hidden in our hearts. His word is a weapon and we can’t use what we don’t have. Let us not be complacent with our struggle. Routines and the hustle of everyday cannot allow us to forget that we are being sanctified through the work of the Spirit to resemble God more and more each day. Part of the process is submitting our emotions to the Lord and letting Him use that to increase our faith. My quickness to anger, to fear, to doubt, and to hurt humble me. I am in need of God’s grace and His power every moment. I need to be mindful of my ever changing heart and even though my heart may waver, my trust must be sure and steady in the God who is unchanging.
I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Psalm 119:10-11
No comments:
Post a Comment