Faith is bigger than feelings
February 11, 2008 | T. Suzanne Eller
Yesterday I got to sit with about 15 teens and talk about God. It’s one of my favorite things to do.
We talked about two faith truths:
1. Faith is meant to be simple, rather than complex
2. God is so much bigger than we know
We talked about a few things that make faith complex and that cause these two truths to get murky. One of those things is: when faith becomes only as big as our last experience–good or bad.
We feel God and we soar high, and then we fail or fall or fail to feel God and we plummet. I’ve worked with teens for nearly 20 years and I often know when a teen is struggling. They don’t worship because they feel judged by another (they know what I did last Friday night) or they feel unworthy.
And yet running to God is exactly where we find what we need during those times. We worship God not because of our feelings, or lack thereof, but because He’s faithful and powerful and changes our hearts and the direction of our lives.
I’ve also watched them go away to camp or experience an amazing connection with God, and they soar, which is awesome. But the next week when life gets tough or people let them down or they get immersed in life, they bungee jump down again because they feel God has somehow slipped off the radar.
I asked the teens to consider that it’s not another person that makes the judgment call on his or her relationship with God, and that asking for help or direction or forgiveness when we make mistakes or lose our way is true worship. It’s standing vulnerable before God and letting him in to the good and bad of our lives, rather than running the other direction because you feel “less than” or turning to what feels good at the moment because you feel you can’t face God.
I also asked them to consider that God doesn’t change when people do or when feelings go away. That He’s faithful. That’s He’s still the Creator of the Universe. That we don’t have to pack God in a backpack when life is transitional, because He’s omnipresent and not hard to find when we seek Him.
I love it when I see the tiny light bulb flash in the heart of a person and I know that they’ve just jumped a hurdle in their faith. That’s what happened yesterday as I sat in a small group of teens hungry for vibrant faith.
Suz
RSS feed for comments on this post.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is:
http://www.tsuzanneeller.com/2008/02/11/faith-is-bigger-than-feelings/trackback/
Hi Suzie - Thanks for visiting me so I could meet you here. I love hearing your perspective on this - I am in the thick of trying to raise teens, and this inspires me to persevere! Oh, how I want them to hunger for vibrant faith, too!
Katherine
February 11th, 2008 at 8:18 pmHi Katherine,
I hope your teens will check out Real Teen Faith at http://realteenfaith.com. It has tons of stuff just for them. I’m so glad you stopped by daretobelieve. I hope you come back!
Suzie
February 12th, 2008 at 12:15 am