In my quest to have control over my life, I often feel as if I exist somewhere on a rope being used for an endless session of tug of war. Part of me wants and expects to be in control at all times, and the small successes I have encourage me to continuously strive to control the next moment…and the next…and the next. Until I hit a wall. You know the moments when God shows you He’s God and you’re not? Yes…those moments. The ones that leave you feeling powerless and completely out of control of your own teary glands and vocal chords… the moments that leave you longing for something or someone else to take over. These are generally my #JesusTakeTheWheel moments, when I remember the part of me that wants to relinquish control. Round and round I go, each season giving me reasons to believe I can somehow control my life, only to learn at the end of that season that I really don’t have that much control.
One of my recent lessons culminated into a reaction so disproportionate to the event in occurrence it made me rediscover myself. It is true that a drop can spill the glass... a glass full of years worth of feelings stuffed so deep I didn’t even know they were there anymore. Prayer had been my hiding spot… I had prayed for God to take those feelings away so I didn’t have to deal with them. Imagine my less than pleasant surprise when they all spilled over!
A couple of weeks ago I had an “ah ha!” moment in Dr. Cliff Sanders’ Sunday school class as I listened to him discuss how we need to embrace our creaturely status. Simply put, God is God and I am not. Of course I know and believe this… but for whatever reason, I will occasionally believe that I got this. He went on to discuss how the key to embracing our creaturely status is to consult and check our feelings… Feelings are things that, if you’re anything like me, you try to avoid spending grey matter on. Deny. Deny. Deny… that is mostly how I deal with undesired feelings.
Dr. Sanders shared parts of “A Simple Prayer”, a book about praying using the practices of St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Ignatius suggests that one of the ways to enrich prayer time to is to consult our feelings. Although faith is often contrary to our feelings, it makes no sense to be afraid of feelings, and even less sense to deny them… God put them there to serve a purpose. So how do we employ them for spiritual growth? The key is to ask the right questions of our feelings… what are my feelings telling me about my expectations? My beliefs? My life management? My health? Sometimes the feelings that stand between us and feeling God’s presence are a result of unmet expectations, unchallenged belief systems, and inadequate time management. Often times, we fall into the trap of accepting and believing without questioning the expectations and beliefs that we are being taught. Other times we simply don’t feel the perks from God because we’re living in the fast lane.
And those are the basic things I needed to be reminded of! The realization that consulting and checking my feelings can get me off my tug of war rope came with a flood of relief. I needed to hear this so I can stop using prayer to change my feelings… because prayer in this form is another type of addiction – the thing I use to change how I feel. I need my time with God to be more productive than just numbing my feelings. The Apostle Paul calls us to take every thought captive until it is obedient to Christ and to be transformed by the renewing of our minds…what we often fail to realize is that this is a continuous process, a daily challenge.
Now my challenge for 2018 is to consult my feelings and check them against God’s word. Next time I feel like I don’t measure up, I want to remind myself of the unmerited favor and unconditional love God has for me. Next time I fear that I’m expandable to the world, I need to remember that God called me into fellowship and that my part is necessary for the building of His Kingdom. I want to remember William Bruner’s words, that I am more likely to act my way into a new way of feeling, than to feel my way into a new way of acting. I need to constantly remind myself of the promises I know to be true until I feel them to be true.
Below is the link to Dr. Sanders teaching, if you’d like to listen 🙂
RukundoRwaSe's Two Cents 
Lovely piece…..R u ok sweetie?
I’m doing fantaaaastic now 🤗