I Don't Feel Like It.

This entry is kinda forced. I don't really have a specific thing to grab onto. I think I am more in need of getting things out of my head out of my heart and to wrestle with them. I choose to do this online because maybe someone out there will stumble over this and figure out that they are too in need of some of my meanderings to help them figure out the junk in their head and heart. Wow. Run-on sentences are awesome...not. But that is okay. Forcing myself to write this entry actually does spur on something in my brain. That is CHOICE. We sometimes have to choose to do things. Life is much more a choice than it is a boogie board trip on our feelings. However, we often base much of what we do off of our feelings. Immediate feeling even. I say immediate feelings because there is a blast over us (or at least over me) to jump on impulse feelings and ride the excitement. But think about your life. The really good decisions for me seem to morph out of a feeling moment that was thought on and chosen anticipating an outcome: rather than jumping at the first feeling and trying to figure out where the journey is going while on the ride. And in that sense often the journey that I choose will rarely look like the feeling of the impulse.

I am a very excitable guy. You could look at me and say: let's (fill in the blank) and if it fits into my moral compass, has a bit of excitement, and has a low "cost"--I would be hard pressed not to jump right in. So from my experiences in life I know what it is to jump on feelings. I know what it is to ride the wave of feelings. I know what it looks like to crash. But I also know what it is to make a CHOICE. A choosing where the outcome is calculated as best as I can: consequences and rewards. The fruit of life for me 9.9 times out of 10 comes out of the times when I choose to do something rather than jump into something from a feeling.

So what? Well for me: so what is doing something we choose to do even when we don't feel like doing it. Choice and commitment trump feelings. I can remember times when I chose to chase after God even though I know that my falling hurts Him. That's not what I felt like do. Sin will make me feel like crawling under a rock and waiting for God to send redemption my way. But what I have to do, in those moments especially, is CHOOSE to chase Him. Choose to face my failures. Choose to face God within my calamity. Those choices are not made off my feelings. My feelings in those moments do not lead me to God's grace, but my choice to face Him in my sin does.

The other little piece for me...when things are going great: to choose to chase Him. I bet the lowest moments in the spiritual lives of people are when things are going great because we tend to coast on our God feelings. (Rather than keep on our chase choice.) Unfortunately our ride of good times ends up being the start of our worst falls. We have to choose always in every situation to put God first in our lives. Think about all the people who would benefit from your life passionate over the things of God: the miracles, the love, the hope, the grace...