Fact, Faith or Feelings? Which is Driving your "Train"?

Do any of you friends out there notice how often we use the word "feelings" in our everyday speech?  Are you like me - struggling with the power I've given my feelings to dictate my mood, my day, my life?  They can determine what kind of day we're going to have and what we are going to attempt and what we aren't.  I can only speak for women here, but I think a lot of us deal with this. The slightest things can set us off.  Someone can say something about us that we absolutely know is not true, but it can send us into a tailspin. We can hear or read something and concoct a worse-case scenario in seconds based on how we feel when we heard or read about it. Am I the only one?  We're always talking about how we feel about things, our self, others.  I know it's a slippery slope that the enemy likes to lead me toward, which is most often a lose lose situation.

For example, today I may be having a great day - feeling good about myself, I love my outfit, and I exude confidence but tomorrow I feel fat and lazy, I hate my hair (among other things) and generally just don't like myself, which usually results in discouragement and defeat, which means I am useless to God or anyone else. Too much self-preoccupation.

Another day I can feel completely loved and adored by my husband, thankful for a 22 year love story, but the next insecure, inadequate, worried he might be attracted to someone better.  The behavior that follows demonstrates neediness, high maintenance, exhausting my poor husband who doesn't know what happened overnight and why he is suddenly thrust into the driver's seat of my overall well-being.

Other days I have spiritual highs when I know God is pleased with me, using me, and I'm loaded with joy, expressing unshakeable enthusiasm.  Then the next, I'm discouraged by my sin and slow growth and I focus on weaknesses, not forgiving myself which translates into depression, spiritual sluggishness and a fruit-bearing halt.

The thing that gets me is how quickly I can swing from one side to the next.  It kind of torks me (my made up word) that I can be so easily swayed.  These should be our first clues that we need to pay attention to who we've allowed to be in control of our fickle feelings.

Have you ever seen this diagram? It's such a powerful, albeit simple, visual of what the "order of things" should be.

FACT - what God says about you in His Word.  
FAITH - believe what the FACTS are.  Period. No arguing.
FEELINGS - they follow and flow out of the FAITH we have in the FACTS.

For example, the Bible says God sees me as His beautiful daughter who has great worth (FACT).  "For we are His workmanship (He makes all things beautiful, His masterpiece) created in Christ Jesus for good works (purpose) which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Eph.2:10.  When I choose to believe this (FAITH),  I am confident in Him, useful to Him and a blessing to others (FEELINGS follow).

If I let a different car of the train get in the lead, I am a mess and usually make a mess. Please don't make me illustrate this - I think you get it.  :)

Oswald Chambers writes, "If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would never do anything.  There are some of us who are totally unemployable in the spiritual realm.  They are spiritually feeble and weak, and they refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired.  The proof that our relationship is right with God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not."*

Whoooooooo!  That screams to me, "Get off that couch or away from that demented mirror, stop listening to those other voices, read what My Word says, believe Me and get chugging! And start making your feelings submit to My Spirit".  Oh, read that again. I'll wait.  I am striving to live in a place where my flesh is subject to my spirit.  That's right - when the flesh says, "Give me what I want" or "I'm not good enough" or "I don't feel like it", I imagine my Spirit saying, "Sit down.  You're not in charge here, I am.  You don't always get what you want. How you feel is not our motivation - this is what God says and this is what we're going to do!"  We must let that be the loudest voice we allow ourselves to listen to. (John 10:3,4)

Living on purpose.  Being ready in season and out of season (2 Tim 4:2).  God, the only steady Rock, making my decisions for me because I can tend to give my feelings the power to make me stumble around. This is where I want to be found.  Let's get that train hooked up in the right order and advance.

 *My Utmost For His Highest