Walking by Faith, Not by Feelings
By Maria Fontaine
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Some find it much easier to be assured of the Lord’s presence in their lives when they experience happy times or emotional highs, things they consider to be proof of His love and closeness to them. However, when those feelings aren’t there, it can be much harder for them to trust. They can be tempted to wonder if God is really there when they can’t feel or see His touch in their lives.
How sad to have to search and plead for God to manifest Himself, when, regardless of what we feel, He is always there, as close as ever! God’s promises tell us that He is always with us, that He will never leave us nor forsake us. He said that though we are faithless, yet He abides faithful.
His love surrounds each of His children moment by moment, whether we are able to feel it or not. His touches may be hidden in the multitude of things that give us life and strength and purpose daily. Even when we do experience momentary spiritual highs, these cannot be the basis for our faith, because they are just fleeting glimpses of spiritual realities.
Many sincere believers don’t experience such things, yet they go about their lives for the Lord quietly, steadily, day after day, whether it’s raising their children, working, studying, doing their best for the Lord, doing what they can to be a witness to people. There are no great signs or revelations, no great highs of emotion, just the quiet assurance that they’re doing God’s will and that He is with them and cares about them. Their faith knows that He is there regardless of what they feel or don’t feel.
I’m one of the many who don’t experience a lot of spiritual thrills and tangible feelings. In the absence of those emotional highs, I still believe and I know that Jesus is right here with me. The more I put my faith in Him, the more I know He’s there.
God’s Word says we are to “walk by faith, not by sight,”1 and that “without faith, it is impossible to please Him.”2 Faith in what? Faith in God’s Word, whether or not we see or feel what we expect or desire.
After He was resurrected, Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”3 In other words, blessed are they who have not seen Him, not felt Him—physically or emotionally—yet have believed, according to His Word, that the Lord is there with them.
Ultimately, what do our feelings have to do with living for the Lord? If we go by our emotions and what our senses show us, we may end up feeling defeated and discouraged much of the time, because we are bound to face difficulties, obstacles, sicknesses, and losses throughout our lives—and those things aren’t going to feel or look very good.
No matter what loss or tragedy or difficulty we face, that doesn’t alter the fact of God’s Word, or the fact that we are the Lord’s. He touches us daily with His love. However, if we depend upon our feelings to confirm our connection with the Lord, rather than trusting God’s Word, we’re sunk!
Our emotions can be fickle and unstable, filled with sudden ups and downs and turns, like a roller coaster. So we can’t go by what we feel or see when it comes to our faith! We have to keep believing that we’re in the Lord’s hands, that we’re His, and He loves and cares about us. God’s Word is the truth that helps us to believe and to have faith even in times of adversity.
We can be thankful for the times that we do experience happy feelings. We can enjoy the emotional highs or feelings of elation if and when they come, but many times the faith life requires plodding along, doing our job for the Lord, even when we don’t feel like it or when it’s difficult or unexciting.
Our joy in Him, our contentment, is something that goes beyond the things of this world. We may experience feelings of sorrow or sadness, and our hearts may be heavy sometimes, but nevertheless, we can have the joy of the Lord, which is our strength, to carry us forward.
We can have the never-ending joy in Him that comes from our relationship with Him. But He also knows how our carnal minds desire to feel manifestations of His love, and sometimes in His mercy He gives us those temporary feelings of happiness to encourage us.
God wants us to love and serve Him. He wants us to trust Him by faith. As God’s children, we can have peace, contentment, and spiritual rest in knowing that we’re the Lord’s and within His loving arms.
To summarize, our faith in the Lord can’t be based solely on short-term physical happiness that is a response to things we like or things that are going well. Neither can it be based on the occasional spiritual thrills and experiences that eventually fade.
Our faith in Him has to be based on letting His Spirit show us how to apply God’s promises in the Word to our lives. That is what creates our joy in Him. It’s something that goes far deeper than momentary “highs and positive feelings,” and it will last forever.
Our faith supersedes and overrides the things of this temporal world. It is built on the fact that no matter how things seem or how we might feel, Jesus is always with us. He is always keeping us, and He is always active and working in our lives!
The Lord reminded me of this little poem attributed to Martin Luther that is so very powerful and could be worth memorizing, if you haven’t already. I quote it sometimes when I’m discouraged or not hearing from the Lord in the way I’m hoping to.
Feelings come and feelings go,
And feelings are deceiving;
My warrant4 is the Word of God—
Naught else is worth believing.
Though all my heart should feel condemned
For want of some sweet token,
There is One greater than my heart
Whose Word cannot be broken.
I’ll trust in God’s unchanging Word
Till soul and body sever,
For, though all things shall pass away,
His Word shall stand forever!
Originally published July 1991. Adapted and republished July 2018.
Read by Carol Andrews.
1 2 Corinthians 5:7.
2 Hebrews 11:6.
3 John 20:29 NIV.
4 Warrant: something considered as having the force of a guarantee or as being positive assurance of a thing.
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