A relationship with Jesus is not simply about emotion or feeling good. A relationship with Jesus involves you. And, just like any other committed relationship, you must make a choice, every day. To protect your intimacy, you must have the tough conversations, put your cards on the table, expose your insecurities and your truth.
If you are tired and your emotions aren’t cutting it, maybe doubt is creeping in, go ahead, move from emotion to logic. Look at His actions, and ask yourself these questions:
- Has He always been true?
- When I was a mess, did it ever scare Him away?
- Has He ever left me when I needed Him?
- When I have been in pain, has He comforted me?
- Does He put me before Himself?
- Can I trust Him… with my things, with my dreams, with my future …with my heart, with my kids?
See, we must bring our doubts and insecurities, and in honesty, leave them at the table like any relationship we commit to. Yet, unlike any other relationship, we will never come up empty-handed.
- He always brings.
- He always shows up.
- He always provides.
- He’s always there.
So, if your emotions are taxed, and you need logic, know that Jesus is still Jesus, and He is always Jesus, no matter how you look at Him, regardless of how you shift or how you feel.
Looking at His “track record” in your life, you will find Him more than good, more than loving, always loyal, forever committed, ever safe and caring. He’s also very, very patient.
What’s going on in the economy has just impacted my husband, so our family, too. We’ve been in very stressful situations before… perhaps more times than I can even count. One such experience taxed me beyond my ability to feel. In that situation, I learned this: When the odds feel stacked against me, and my emotions betray me, I have a choice to make.
Go ahead, ask yourself this question, too: Will I choose to put my faith into practice, into action, even when I’m not feeling it? Will I truly take God at His Word? When my emotions have failed me, unable to be trusted, will I make the daily choice to believe everything I said I believe when I felt good?
You must make that choice. For me, yes, always; because, I know God is always with me, His Holy Spirit helps me in my weakness, and I simply can do nothing alone. (I’ve learned that the hard way!)
When the odds seem stacked against you, you need God more. You need reinforcements. That’s what the Christian walk is all about: We are sinful, so we try going it alone. We trust our emotions and we trust our abilities, when we should not. We let ourselves, and the world lets us down, and we say, Now what…? Help! And Jesus comes to the rescue… Every time, no matter how many times that is.
So, if your feelings are taxed, and you don’t even want to hear yourself talk, simply utter that four-letter-word that will actually get you somewhere, Help! And He will come bail you out, scoop you up, comfort you, and bandage you time and time again. He has already done it so many times, proven Himself so many times.
Keep choosing Him, every day, and you will get through this. He makes His Word good, and that is what makes Him supernatural in a very natural world. We love you, Jesus!
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrew 10:23).
Sarah Guldalian 