So often I've heard it said among Christians, "don't be led by your emotions", or "emotions are deceiving", to the point that I end up feeling like I can't hear Christ through my emotions, or if I feel a feeling in my times of conversing, or worshiping Him that I can't trust those emotions, therefore they have no validity in the moment and I should shut them off.
However, during some time spent worshiping God today the thought suddenly occurred to me that what if God not only wants me to experience Him in my thoughts, but also in my feelings....that what if...those feelings are a way for me to feel Him and be directed by Him, a way to experience His love, His joy, His peace, and His fulfillment.
By nature, and being an "artistic" sort of person it could be said that I am fairly emotional and sensitive to things that others would not normally respond to. I've always tended to view this as a bad thing because of all of the negative things I've heard from Christians about our emotions; however I don't recall reading anywhere in the Bible that the Holy Spirit only wants me to experience Him in my mind, and in this moment spent worshiping today when this thought occurred to me I felt so full of God's presence as I let the guard down in my emotions and felt free to finally experience Him in my emotions without any condemning thoughts to hold me back.
In that same moment of being free to experience Christ in my emotions I was singing the words, "To worship You I live. To worship You, I live, I live, to worship You", and in that moment I felt such peace, joy, and a fulfillment that can't even come close to being matched, flood over my emotions, and overtake every thought, and every part of my being. And in that split second everything made sense....I was created to worship....what I worship is my choice, I can choose to worship the created things that fill my world, or I can choose to worship the Creator of those things and of my very soul. In that moment, the only sensible thing to do was to worship the Creator, the only One great enough to be worthy of worship and worthy of praise; nothing else even comes close to being worthy of that kind of adoration. This is how I want to live my life... to worship Christ and experience that kind of deep fulfillment, and peace fill up my entire being...over and over and over again. Nothing else will do, and I won't settle for less.
To worship You Jesus I live,
Crystal
I love your words and they speak to me. You are right. I’ve heard the same thing over and over from the “church” and find myself repeating it because “it’s what we are supposed to say.” Thank you for writing this! This puts my feelings in a different light…the light of worship! Love this, "I was created to worship....what I worship is my choice, I can choose to worship the created things that fill my world, or I can choose to worship the Creator of those things and of my very soul.” Yes! It’s a choice! We have so many choices after all, don’t we? Thank you for sharing this from your heart…and your feelings. You are right. on. track. as far as I’m concerned. ;) I’ll be back for more of your encouragement here! Glad to find you. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Meredith for reading! I am so humbled and encouraged to know that God was able to speak to you through this. It's amazing that we can experience Christ in our feelings as we yield them to Him and choose Him as the object of our affection, isn't it? Thank you again; your comment was very timely for me today!
Deleteas the Creator of us - including the ability to feel emotions - we honour God by living FULLY ALIVE ! be blessed in your experiential awareness of the Lover of your soul...
ReplyDeleteLive deep ;)
Thanks for stopping by Faith! Yes, far too often we settle for just getting by when God wants us to live a full life experiencing all He has to offer. You're right and I choose to live deep too! :) Take care!
Delete