Door County Mocha Mint Coffee just splashed into my cup and the steam is rising toward the ceiling of the kitchen. I have a front row seat to a blizzard in front of me. It didn't take our dog Gibbs too long to get his business done outside this morning. The weather chased him right back into the house.
I learned a long time ago that facts, faith and feelings are three separate things. Along with feelings, usually come emotions and the two can be a bad combination.
I never lean on my feelings or emotions. Those two things, when combined can make for a bad cocktail. To survive in this world I rely on my faith in God.
The writer of Psalm 138 says of God, "In the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul.” When we are right with God, we never go into turmoil alone. We have the Creator of the Universe on our side.
For example, take David and the story of how he killed Goliath (1 Samuel 17) At the time, David was a shepherd boy, not a warrior. But when he saw Goliath mocking God's people, David approached the king and asked to go down and fight. Picture the babysitter next door or the kid who delivers your papers telling the President, "Let me handle this one."
David's ability to not be shaken by Goliath's size or insults was the result of David's faith in God. David tells the king, "The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine" (1 Samuel 17:37). David had faith that God would defeat the giant and deliver His people, so David to stood up to the king and then to the giant.
Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as "confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."
Faith is the result of believing the Gospel — the good news that Jesus died for our sin and made a way for us to be right with God and spend eternity in heaven. When we allow the reality of the Gospel to affect every part of our lives, it changes the way we think which changes how we behave.
Faith causes us to act on what we haven't experienced yet, to believe promises in the Bible that haven't been fulfilled yet, and to trust God when our situations haven't changed yet.
If I followed my emotions or feelings I would be inconsistent in my approach to even the simple things of life. I love my job, but many days when I wake up I don't feel like going to work. I therefore would miss a lot of work and would be out of a job. If I followed all of my emotions, anger would take over too many times and I would be beat up or in jail for beating on others.
I place my faith in God, and trust the 66 books of the Bible to ground me and give me God's reference on life with the facts of His desires. Faith, along with Biblical facts not emotions or feelings set my life in the right direction. It's when I wander from this plan that I find myself compounding the turmoil of life.
Faith is fact, not the fiction of feelings or emotions. Be safe out there.
Marty
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