Choose to feel

As a child, I was always extremely sensitive. I wore my heart on my sleeves. I always knew how I was feeling, why I was feeling it and I was never shy about expressing what was on my mind. At the same time though, I also had an uncanny ability to plug into what others were feeling as well. My Mom tells the story of me answering the phone in our house when I was little and handing it to her – always telling her how I thought the person on the other end was feeling… “Mommy, it’s so-and-so… and she sounds very sad”. Mom said that more often then not, I would prove to be right.

While some may chalk this up as just a little boy being able to correctly read the voice of someone on the other end of the line, I have come to think – instead – that it is a special gift from God. Oh, it’s true that I have tried to hide it from time to time under a crusty exterior, but a sad movie or event, or a moment of pure injustice is pretty much enough to reduce me to a slobbering mess on the edge of my chair. In many ways, I am still that little child -- sensitive and always conscious of my feelings and wondering how others are feeling as well.

God doesn’t give the same gifts out to everybody – he doesn’t tell everyone that they will all receive the gifts of tongues, just like he doesn’t tell everybody that they will receive a gift of discernment. All people have been given something different that they bring to the Kingdom of God, because it is in those differences that the perfection of Christ is made known.

1 Corinthians 12:28-31: “…And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way”.

All of us have been created and gifted differently, yet all of us have been created in the image of God. We all bear His mark, and as His children, we all exhibit bits and pieces of His personality:

Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them”.

My ability to feel is directly given to me by God. I know that. The same compassion that healed the ruler’s daughter (Matthew 9:18), the same God that cried when Lazarus died (John 11:35), the God described by Paul as the “Father of Compassion” (2 Corinthians 1:3) has given to me a bit of himself – the ability to feel and to love to a capacity that I believe is deeper than most. Some of us are gifted in music. Others are gifted in mechanics. Some are gifted in speaking. I am fortunate to have the gift of compassion.

However, over the course of the last few weeks it is just this capacity to feel that I have been struggling with in a major way – because my capacity to feel has proven a welcome tactic for the enemy to exploit so that I feel guilty, afraid and unsure of how to move forward.

As I have said in other posts, I have been inundated with thoughts of pure garbage and evil for the last month. Praise the Lord, it is much better than it was 3.5 weeks ago, but it remains a struggle. Part of the reason why I think it remains a struggle is in part because of my ability to feel – it is both a blessing and a disadvantage at time of like this.

You see if the enemy can put the garbage he has in my head and then leave me to fester over it, his work is done. What’s more, if I can then regurgitate those thoughts over and over again in my head without any sort of prompting, then not only is he winning – but I am losing, and in the process losing sight of the very real gift God has given me: the ability to feel and the ability to use those good feelings to do the good works of His Kingdom: to help the helpless and to reach out to the broken-hearted.

During this time of struggle, I have allowed the enemy – and indeed myself – to pollute this sense of feeling with dread and guilt:

- How could I have ever thought these things?
- What kind of a person am I?
- I am a truly hateful individual!
- This garbage is going to come back into my head
- How am I going to be able to go on like this?
- I can’t focus on anything else except this one problem

Each and every one of those above statements are things I have thought – indeed, felt – these last few weeks. Yet every last one of them is poison put into my head by an enemy who loves to play on the fact that as a feeler, I am more likely than most to allow these things to spread like choke-weed through my brain, my soul, my heart. The enemy plants the seeds, then my feelings of dread and fear take over and fertilize them until my mind’s garden is a mess of overgrown emotions – and joy, praise and optimism are not among the growth.

That’s the thing about this time of trial: I have allowed not only these thoughts to consume me in worry and dread, but I have done the opposite of what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:10: “…That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong”.

I have not delighted once in this time – I have known it was a good thing to have been given a thorn in my side, but I have carried myself under the weight of tremendous agony when we are commanded NOT to carry struggle like this is a burden – but rather as a service and demonstration of faith to God:

James 1:2-4: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything”.

Pure joy is not something I have willingly experienced these last few weeks – in part because this is a time of immense struggle but in part because as someone who is so conscious of just what and how I am feeling, I allow myself to be kneecapped – and I even kneecap myself – by focusing on the pain instead of putting my focus entirely on God.

Yet, one thing I know that I have not focused on as much as I should is that God is still in the midst. His light is STILL shining. It is STILL present and it has NEVER gone out. Not once during this entire time. He has talked to me. He has comforted me. He has calmed my anxiety and quelled my fears. He has strengthened me and anointed me a warrior. He has provided me with a great Body of Christ on which to lean and to reap the benefits of their – HIS – compassion. In short, the joy of the Lord could be my strength during this time… but instead I have chosen to go about with long face, dealing with difficulties as though overwhelmed by the challenge of confronting these emotions and thoughts.

But the reality is that being overwhelmed is NOT of God – God does not allow us to get overwhelmed. In every storm, He only demands that we have faith and He will quell the waters for us (Matthew 8:23-27). That alone is reason enough to rejoice. But sometimes, even during the darkest of days, we need to consciously remind ourselves to seek the light of God… because without it, we can and we will continue to sit around and mourn like those who are lost.

The enemy does not want me to realize the limitless potential of this gift of compassion. Compassion is the bane of the enemy – it is ugly to him. He views it as not only a weakness to exploit but a potential strength in his adversaries that he must destroy. It is why when you get a tinge of sadness when you see the loneliness of a homeless man or woman and think about speaking to them, the next thought that comes into mind is wondering what people might think if they saw you. It is why when we think about helping out a neighbour or friend with a project in one moment, we then in the next think to ourselves that we are just too busy with our own lives to do anything for someone else. It is why when we see a colleague at work, as I did yesterday, who has been downcast and sad for the better part of the last 10 days that we consider giving them an encouraging word, and then beg off because we aren’t sure of what to say or how to say it. Compassion. It exists. But the enemy likes to give it a good hard kick in the hopes it can be bruised and abused into submission. For those of us who have been specially gifted with compassion or feeling, we feel those bruises and he knows it – he kicks us harder, because he knows that it not only will knock the wind out of us, but we will focus on the injury – thereby making it harder to focus on anything else.

But God is the Father of Compassion. He is the Father of Joy. He is the Father of Christ. If we allow ourselves to be caught up in the whirlwind that is doubt, despair and fear than we will never move beyond the spot we are in right now. And frankly, we owe God a lot better than that – we owe Him our best. And right now, I am not giving Him my best if I am allowing myself to be cowed by the one who was thrown out of heaven. Giants, as I said a few days ago, don’t get to win. They lose because we have the biggest giant our side: Jehovah Jireh!

Last night while I was praying – and then again this morning – I declared David’s battle cry that while the enemy was trying to take away my sense of joy, my loves in life and was trying to do so with “swords, spears and javelin”, that I stood on the side of a righteous and loving God who not only has great plans for me (Jeremiah 29:11) but also because the joy of the Lord is NOT a weakness – it is a strength (Nehemiah 8:10). It is something to hold onto – the knowledge that what makes us feel, are the things to celebrate.

The enemy has no right to turn our gifts against ourselves. In fact, he has no right to do anything. He has no victory. He has nothing.

It is time to embrace the gifts that God gave us for what they truly are: blessings to take us through adversity, to enhance our joy and to guide us to glory in Him

Galatians 5:22-23 talks about the fruits of the Spirit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law”.

If I am concentrating on this trial and only the trial – and not the joys that this trial is supposed to bring me – then I am not exuding my gift, and I am certainly not exuding the fruits of the spirit.

I think it’s time to do a little more joy and a lot less guilt.

God doesn’t do guilt – He does joy. In abundance. If we let Him. But how often do we do that?

Friends, if you are a feeler like me, then let’s do something a bit different today – let’s allow yourselves to feel, even during adversity and trial. Let’s not allow ourselves to hide the light God has given us because we are too wrapped up in worry or focused inwards on ourselves. When we do that, nobody wins – not us, not others and certainly not God. Remember, if the enemy kicks you, he’s just trying to bruise you. But remember: while bruises can hurt, it doesn’t always mean that something is broken. It just means you can feel that a tender part of yourself is a little bit more exposed to feeling. And that’s a good thing.

In any struggle don’t lose your capacity to feel. Cry with God. Rejoice with God. Give the gift of your joy and love to others. God did NOT give you a spirit of fear – He gave you one of power, love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). Embrace that. It’s true.

Feelings last. Bruises don’t.