Doing versus feeling

“How can I feel the feeling of God when I don’t?

“I feel like a hypocrite praying when it is just words coming out of my mouth.  Or when I go to church and sing the songs or do what I am supposed to do on the liturgy.

“Isn’t it hypocritical to do the actions and mouth the words when I don’t have any feeling to accompany the actions?”

That’s the gist of a question someone asked C.S. Lewis.

Lewis’ reply was that all of the Christian life is a kind of play-acting.  We are called by our Lord to play the role of a disciple of Jesus.  Over time, as we do what we are called to do, whether we have feelings or not, eventually we become who we would like to be.

Feelings come eventually, and of course then disappear promptly.

The point is not whether feelings are there or not.  The point is that life is more than feeling, and faith is infinitely more than feeling.  Becoming a person of God, one who is devoted to the Triune God, is about doing and thinking and being the kind of person we want to be.

Of course we never get there . . . in full.  We always only approach.  But that’s OK.  In the process the Holy Spirit is working on us from both the inside and the outside.

Now . . . to today’s illustration.  This is by a non-messianic Jew.  He too wished he had spiritual feeling and most of the time did not.  He was encouraged–almost ordered–one day in Jerusalem to put on tefillin—the leather straps that Orthodox Jewish men wrap around their arms when they pray.

He resisted at first, but because of the caring earnestness of the exhorter, he put them on.  And he found that doing must often come before feeling.  (I would say the greater point is that feeling is to a great degree irrelevant and unimportant.)

Now to the story.  Read and enjoy on this New Year’s Eve.  This might lead you to make a New Year’s Resolution.