I’ve come across a number of people recently who have expressed that their “burning passion” for God is deteriorating. Many struggle to find the feelings that they may have had when they felt God close. Some feel like God is distancing Himself from them. Others lack the expressed feelings of joy and happiness that they had when they were on fire for God and feeling the comfort that comes from that emotional high.
And when times like these come, the common question is, “How do I get that fire for God back? How do I get motivated to continue chasing after God?”
And the very simple answer is that you choose to do the hard work that comes with love. When you lack the motivation to read your Bible, choose to read it anyway. When you lack the motivation to pray, choose to pray anyway. When you lack the motivation to attend church, choose to go anyway. When you lack the motivation to fight temptation, choose to fight temptation. Because let me tell you, a feeling is not strong enough to get you through the harsh realities that will try to destroy your love for God. No feeling will ever be strong enough to support love when things go bad. The only action that can support love is choice.
The long answer is this: Let’s take the idea of a relationship, specifically marriage. Now, I’m not married, but nonetheless, I believe that I can provide an accurate representation and breakdown of what is required to make a marriage work using Biblical principles. I’m just going to do it in reverse, so bear with me.
Ephesians affirms that the concept of earthly marriage is meant as a reflection of the church’s relationship with Christ.
Chapter 5 verses 22-29 say that wives should submit to their husbands in the same way that the church should submit to Christ. Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loves the church. He is to give himself to her. Husbands are also called to love their wives just as much as they love themselves to see her as his own flesh such that he provides and cares for her, just like Christ does for the church. He clothes us in His own righteousness so that we may be seen as righteous like Christ and not the sinners we are because we have been made one with Christ.
I don’t think Paul could have written it any clearer without literally writing, “God made marriage so that you could get a glimpse of what your relationship with Him should be like.”
I’ve been listening to a number of podcasts about marriage recently to prepare myself for when I, hopefully, get married, and one of the most consistently spoken about conflicts is how to handle separation between husband and wife. What do you do when life gets busy and the butterflies disappear? Even generally speaking, you’ll likely hear married couples talk about the disaster that is the ending of the “honeymoon phase.” What do you do when you’re no longer pursuing each other like your relationship is new?
The most spoken answer? Act. Do something about it. When a husband and wife are distant from each other emotionally, things won’t magically fix themselves. One or the other has to step up and begin pursuing their spouse in an effort to love them. When husband and wife get into an argument and neither of them feel like loving the other, the way to resolve that issues is not to wait until the feelings of love return. The way to resolve the issue is for one of them to sacrifice themselves, despite their feelings of shame, embarrassment, anger, whatever, and choose to love through the hard times.
Here’s why you can’t rely on emotions to get you through rough spots in marriage. When the rough spots come, the only emotions you are going to feel are ones that will make it that much harder for you to do what you know is right. You will be angry. You will be sad. You will be distraught. You will be ashamed. And none of those are conducive in motivating you to love. All of those things are conducive in motivating you to hate.
Okay, I know I’ve given some very vague examples. Sorry! When I get married, I’ll revisit this topic and give y’all some very clear situations in which you will have to choose love over emotional motivation, but until then, you’ll have to settle with these and one more passage of scripture that gives the clearest example of how this works as there could ever be.
Matthew 26:38-39 says, “Then He said to them, ‘My soul is swallowed up in sorrow—to the point of death. Remain here and stay awake with Me.’ Going a little farther, He fell facedown and prayed, ‘My Father! If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.’”
Do you really understand the deepness of this passage? Jesus is in emotional distress. He knows what is coming. He knows what He should do. Yet He desires another way. His emotions are saying, “I don’t want to do this.” He’s feeling unmotivated. He was so stressed by His feelings that He was literally sweating blood.
But what does He do? He chooses to do what He knows is right, what He knows must be done. And He goes and sacrifices Himself on the cross so that we could be saved. And that is the most perfect example of what you should do when you don’t feel so good about God.
In retrospect, what we sometimes lack the feeling to do is such a minuscule sacrifice when we compare it to what Jesus did. How hard is it, really, to read your Bible every day? Does it really take that long? Does it really take so much out of you to pray in the morning, at night, before meals? Does it cut a huge swath of time from your day to just be with God? I don’t think so.
And you know, the greatest thing about choosing to love God when you don’t feel like loving God is that the feelings come back. You might not notice it at first or it could hit you like a flood. But when you genuinely pursue God, you will find the joy that allowed Paul to live in a nasty dungeon while writing letters to encourage believers all around the known world. You will find the peace that comes with knowing that our all-powerful God has everything under control and is right there beside you at all times.
It may not be easy, but it will be worth it.