When I don't feel like it...

June 8, 2009

I really don't feel like writing. I don't know why that is. I feel prompted to write more out of obligation to my blog, but I really don't feel like it. I'm sitting here staring at the screen, without an idea of what to write about, so I guess we'll see where this leads. I feel like I should be writing that I am happy about having done my public speaking debut at the women's retreat last Saturday. But I don't honestly know how I feel about it. I don't have that wonderful feeling of satisfaction over it, because I actually don't feel like it was anything about that. My having a feeling of satisfaction over it. I wasn't speaking for my own glory, and really wanted to keep it that way, and said a lot of prayer to that effect. So, there it is. I did it, and I feel all numb about it. In a good way I think. The mere fact that I am still alive after it testifies that that's all a God thing, because if you'd seen me stand up in front of the class in the fourth grade with all the tears and all the torture, and then Saturday night... you'd think yeah, that was God. I truly hope He had some glory in it, because that was its one and only purpose. I kinda thought, that maybe, just maybe, though, I would've heard a "good job, Jen" somewhere deep in my heart. Some kind of confirmation that what I said might have mattered to someone or accomplished a purpose of His somewhere. Nope.

I kinda was also hoping to have that feeling beforehand, too, one where I KNEW God was with me, that feeling of invincibility, calmness, and supernatural confidence of knowing I was pro surfing in a sweet spot inside a tube of a grace wave. Nope. Nothing. When everyone finished singing, and I knew it was my turn, knowing I couldn't retreat from this retreat, all I could think in my head was, "if I perish, I perish." Not exactly what I'd hoped for for inspiration.

I keep hearing something in Bible study, and Keelin's bringing Sunday school lessons home to the same end, and maybe it's a parallel. But maybe not, we'll see as I finish this post. That faith isn't a feeling. That sometimes our actions don't have to be preceded by a feeling. When God says, "Move!" we might not feel the happy, light feeling to move first. But the fact that He said "Move" should be enough. That faith is the evidence of things unseen. Those things, like "He'll never leave you," "I am with you always," are promises. And He is 100% faithful. It's a head thing, belief is. So when I was leaning really, really hard on those verses that God is "right by my side" and "in the fear of the LORD there is strong confidence" and when I prayed Moses' prayer about speaking He showed me that I don't have to "feel" Him to know that He's there. Hmm... it looks like someone got something out of the talk.

Ahh, confirmation. Imagine that. And I didn't even feel like writing.

Our soul waits for the LORD;He is our help and our shield. For our heart rejoices in Him, Because we trust in His holy name. Let Your lovingkindness, O LORD, be upon us, According as we have hoped in You. Psalm 33:20-22