Feelings Lie

I keep trying to blog about the moving experience, but honestly, it’s been hard to find the right words.  I wrote a few weeks ago about living in tension, and I think that concept is still so true, and it has been one I’ve been meditating on a lot lately.   I think God is trying to show me how so many things about our world can work in tension with one another but both be true at the same time.  For example, we live in a world God designed but that we tainted with sin.  He sent Jesus to redeem the world, but the final battle with Satan will not be won until Christ returns.  So, it’s true that God is supremely in control, but it is also true that sin is real right now and that sin touches absolutely everything here.

Right now, I feel like I’m living in the valley of tension between what I feel and what I know, and I’ve thought a lot about feelings versus reality in these last few weeks, also.  I read this book one time about how to know you’ve heard God’s voice and are following it.  It was by a very well respected Christian author that I still admire, but I remember her writing a chapter that essentially said you’ll know that you are living your calling in Christ when you feel fulfilled and peaceful – when you feel your work is purposeful.  I definitely felt that way in Clemmons.  In a million ways I won’t list, I felt like I was finally in a place to fully use my gifts and passions in service of Christ.  And I DID feel all the things she said you would feel, so being ripped away from that place and dropped down in a new place where I’m floundering again to find what God’s purpose might be is super hard.  Combine that with a drastically changed lifestyle that comes with moving from a smaller community to a really big city that is further away from most of our family and….you get the picture. 

But I also KNOW what is true in this situation, and no disrespect to the Christian author, but she is wrong about how your feelings will line up neatly when you are serving where God has you.  I know this because I taught high school for 7 years.  I taught under a definite calling from the Lord to do so, and I was good at what I did – I used gifts the Lord had given me, and I had a sincere heart for my students.  I loved my time in the classroom.  What I didn’t love was the job as a whole.  I did not love the long nights grading or the 50+ hour work weeks because to be a good teacher, I just couldn’t get the work done in less time.  I didn’t love grading 100+ research papers because I had 40 kids in two of my three classes.  All the things public teachers complain about are true.  They are overworked and underappreciated, and that job was HARD.  I had to fight to remember what I knew was true when I worked in the classroom, and I had to work to focus on the good – which was my time spent in the room with my kids or developing lessons I knew they would love.

And just as I know beyond any doubt that God called me to major in education and teach for that time, I know he has put us in Charlotte right now.  I know that is true even though I struggle to come up with a long list of positives about being here. 

Maybe you find yourself in a similar place.  A place where things are hard and there feels like there is no way out – God is not opening doors or showing you details.  You can see glimpses of purpose, but there are also many days where it feels like you are a fish floundering on dry ground.  I get that feeling.  I understood it when I taught, and I feel that way again right now.  But what I know is this: that feeling does not mean you aren’t right where God would have you be.  That’s the tension.  Our feelings can’t be trusted to show us when we are walking in our purpose.  A word of truth from a sweet friend has also been such an encouragement to me this week.  I called her in tears over life here (y’all I’m not lying when I say it’s been hard), and she said, “Even if it never gets better.  Even if you never see the reason you live there, and it is hard for the entire time are there, is Jesus still worth following?”  She asked that because she knows that I believe, no matter what, that the Lord brought us there.  Her question actually lined up with a word the Lord spoke to me before we even knew we were moving which was: “Even if I take you to Charlotte, can you still believe I’m good?” And the resounding answer to both questions is yes.  Yes, Jesus is always worth following even if things never change for me here, and yes, I can believe that God is good no matter what.  Those statements are true regardless of what my feelings are saying. 

So, for whatever situation you are facing today.  If it never changes and you don’t know the purpose this side of heaven, is Jesus still worth following?  And can you believe God is good even when you don’t see the full picture?