Do Feelings Rule You?

Guilt.

It hits me with a sledgehammer a lot. Normally, it concentrates it’s whacks in one place. For me, it is in my mothering. So often, I ask myself: Am I fun enough? Caring enough? Playful enough? Instructional enough? I walk around trying my hardest, while, all at the same time, feeling at my neediest, my guiltiest.

Just the other day, my 4-year old son looked at me and said, “Mommy, I love daddy a little bit more than you.”

HUH? After all I do for you! (then the tsunami rushed over me sweeping away all value I have as a mother).

Do you, son?

Yes, but not a ton, just a little bit more.

May I ask you why?

Well, you look a little strange, mom. I mean, your body is more odd than mine. If you were like daddy and me, then I would love you the same.

And there you have it. While I was walking around defeated, hunched over and breathless at the thought of piles and mounds and landfills of failing, my son was just being a 4-year old in his 4-year old world. He was simply saying, it’s not you mommy, it’s just a phase.

How often do we look at things that have nothing to do with us
and immediately feelings of guilt?

In a way, we load up all the bad things about ourselves into a huge offering of inadequacy and put it before the feet of Jesus and say, “I stink. What are you going to do about it?”

Certainly we don’t want to do the opposite and act like this: “This is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats and wipes her mouth, and says, ‘I have done no wrong.’” Prov. 30:20

One unable to see their wrongs is one
unable to allow Jesus to make them right.

Yet, we have no need for this: When anyone is unfaithful to the LORD by sinning unintentionally in regard to any of the LORD’s holy things, they are to bring to the LORD as a penalty a ram from the flock, one without defect…It is a guilt offering. Lev. 5:15

Sacrificing our own animal instincts, unloved emotions and bad feelings
upon an altar of guilt is not a standard that God upholds anymore.

So, why do we keep doing it?

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:21

The one without defect is not found in our self.

The one without defect is not admonished of guilts
through a continuous offering of side effects.

The one without defect never has been and never will be us.

The one without defect is the one sledgehammered to a cross to abolish us from the painful rendering of guilt-laced feelings so long ago.

If we feel unsure. His blood says, “Do your best and trust me with the rest.”
If we reside in shame, his blood says, “Don’t hang out with lowly feelings, let me clean you through my healing.”
If we sin, his blood says, “Confess and know that I have covered that.”

What cause to celebrate! What need to rejoice! What once noosed us has no rope. What held us back is no longer the starting gate we can’t leap out of. What cripples us is let go in the free grace of Jesus’ love.

A love that says, “Live free. I will take you to where you need to go, trust me in the process. I don’t demand no flaws, just full trust.”

As I look at my Savior, I see full acceptance. And I see that what grips me so often is gripping his life out of me.

Do you live by the pulse of your feelings
or do you live by the pulse of God’s great heart beating only for you?

Lord, may our conscience align with your truth. Not the truth of our feelings, but only truth as only outlined by your Word. May we live full of the fact that you are not demanding perfection, but are aware of our imperfection until the day that you make it complete in Christ Jesus. More and more we are growing into you. Until then, we have all we need to live complete. Give us a fresh outpouring of your grace, so that we can know it and live it. Amen.

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