[zeek]

Originally Posted by OBW

One of the more troublesome aspects of the Christian life is how to deal with dry times. And how to "get the feeling again" (as Barry Manilow sang).

The question that I have is whether we were made to feel alive or to be alive? If you don't feel alive, are you no longer alive?

This whole realm fits in nicely with the question I raised in another thread about "God's plan." We are so often conditioned to believe that our "inner sense" is a barometer of God's activity in and around us. And we think that a lack of discernible activity is somehow evidence of a failure on our part. A variant on the prosperity gospel. We seek the feeling because it proves to us that we are on the right track. And if we don't feel it, then we are doing something wrong.

That is what Lee's dispensing did for us. We learned to consider that "getting dispensing" was all we needed so we learned to feel good about that. And we also learned that just doing what we knew was right was not right. But we were duped. It really was right.

In the meantime, as we felt good for doing "spiritual things" and "getting dispensing" while ignoring righteousness, it would be safe to say that any accurate sense of God should have been displeasure. But it was not. Or at least we thought it was not.

God's goal is not to be active everywhere and everyone know it because they sense it. It is (as it was) to have his created people be his representative. To bear his image on the earth. That can only be meaningful if he is not constantly visible and moving without us. We must become his hands and feet. We must be those who live the righteousness of God. It should not matter how we feel about it. We must be about our Father's business.

Seems dry? No sense of personal speaking from God? Do we think that is the measure of the presence of God? What happened to omnipresent? What happened to "I am with you always"? Why do we allow the feelings to drive us? You will probably feel at least a little better for realizing that the way you feel is not an indicator of God's presence.

And what if the feelings are self-created and revolve around the irrelevant? What then? I guess we strike out on our own based on whatever seems right to us based on a jolt of static electricity, a bad taco, or a reduction in back pain for the day.

Yes, neither the Eastern nor Western mind owns these. They are natural and illusory. The difference should be that their religions have embraced it while our has (or should) ignore it.

I'm not advocating having feelings like that. I was just describing what it was like when I had them. Sure, such feelings could be as meaningless as you suggest. What does living "the righteousness of God" and "being about our Father's business" mean to you? Is that what you think you're doing?