The comment:
I keep listening to this song, wishing my heart wasn’t so numb to Jesus.
It was a response to a post a while back.
And while I wish I didn’t identify with this, I do.
Numb: deprived of the power of sensation.
We so desperately want to feel Jesus that oftentimes we believe it’s necessary to continue following Him. And while, yes, I think it’s a pretty powerful component in our relationship with Him…I think it can also become a crutch for us.
Here’s how I see it:
We have these mountaintop experiences with the Lord where everything feels exactly the way we think it’s supposed to. We love Jesus, we know He loves us… we’ll do anything for Him. We’ll go anywhere, we’ll give up anything, we’ll love whomever He asks us do. We’re sold out believers. Every time we read our Bibles, we feel like He’s telling us something new…We’re on fire! En fuego! Nothing can or will ever stop us from this mission we are on!
But then time passes.
The fire dims.
We’re reading the Bible, but we feel nothing. In fact, it’s hard to do more than just skim over the words. We’re praying, but it just feels like we’re speaking words into nothing. We’re talking about the Lord, but mostly just saying the things that we know make us sound like we are on top of our game. Times of worship are filled with frustration.. filled with zero sensation.
Our hearts plead, “Jesus, where are you? Why can’t I feel you anymore? I know this song, this passage, this Truth, this situation should be moving me..but it’s not. What’s wrong with me??”
And that often becomes the thing we believe over all other things: that something is wrong with us. That we aren’t doing something right. That we are being punished. That the Lord has abandoned us. That we need to do more of something. That we’re disconnected and it’s all our fault.
This feeling of numbness, of disconnectedness often moves us in two opposite directions. One pushes us further into various disciplines: If only I read my Bible more, if only I pray more, if only I serve more, if only I love others better… then I will feel close to Jesus again. Then I’ll be on the right track. The other is when our numbness turns into apathy…and we just start to distance ourselves further from the Lord. Who cares if I read my Bible at all? Who cares if I serve or if I love well? None of it matters. And we eventually find ourselves in a place we’d never imagined we’d be: numb, apathetic, lonely and, more often than not, swallowed up in some form of darkness.
It’s hard… I get it. It’s hard to go from a place of truly feeling the Lord to being in a place where you feel nothing. It’s hard to be at the point of tears when you’re presented with the Gospel and then be in a place where it just feels like a story you’ve heard many times before. It’s hard to not feel like something is wrong with you when that transition takes place.
But, I don’t think there is anything wrong with us.
In fact, sometimes I think we can place to much power on the experiential aspect of our faith and disregard the facts of our faith.
If in the height of my most spiritual experiential encounter I can acknowledge Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I also, in the depths of numbness and apathy, should be able to acknowledge Him as the same. How I feel doesn’t ever change who He is and what He has done for us.
I think that’s the point the Lord wants us to be at in our relationship with Him. The point where we are going to choose Him, no matter what. The point where we are going to make our decisions (despite how we feel in the moment) in a way that honors Him and reflects Him.
The point of our faith isn’t to be in a constant state of feeling close to the Lord…the point of our faith is to walk further into it, to live in such a way where we seek to know Him more, when we are obedient to the call on our lives…even when we feel numb or apathetic. My end goal can’t be about achieving a closeness with the Lord based on my emotions. I’m far too emotionally unstable for that to ever be the case. My end goal has to be glorifying Him, acknowledging Him as Lord…in every season, no matter where I’m at or what I’m feeling at the time. It’s part of the covenant I have entered into.
I think it’s normal to feel distant at times… I think it’s normal to feel numb. Is it ideal? No. But, what in this life is at all times? I think it’s more about what we do when we’re numb, when we’re apathetic, when we’re feeling distant and disconnected from Jesus.
Do we let the emotions drive us?
Do we let them define us?
Or do we let the truth about who Jesus is drive us and define us?
You may not be doing anything wrong when you feel distant from the Lord, when you feel numb. But will you prove yourself faithful to Him in those times? Will you still be obedient? Will you still be willing to go anywhere, do anything, love anyone? Will you still keep your eyes focused on Him?
We can’t ever read our Bibles enough or pray enough (at least I never have been able to…not to the point where I was able to say, “Okay, I’m done. That was sufficient enough.”)…and I’m not convinced that those are the things that will always draw us into feeling intimacy with the Lord. It’ll often happen in the most random of times when we least expect it (sometimes even when we’ve done nothing ‘right’).
It’ll be He who orchestrates it all.
In the meantime, I’ll do what I have been asked to do…no matter how I feel.
Because I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, in the highs and in the lows. It is He who loves me, saves me, heals me, reconciles me to God. Sometimes that alone will bring me to tears as I feel the power (and humility) of what that means for my life…and sometimes that’ll just be a fact that I live my life by.
May we find freedom in acknowledging Jesus Christ as our Savior, no matter how we feel. May we find freedom in not always having to question what’s wrong with us…but allowing ourselves to wait patiently for the Lord to bring us into those emotional moments with Him. We don’t have to make them happen…they aren’t the crux of our faith.
Jesus is.
Let’s not make it so much about us that we forget about Him.