Over the years, I've had the pleasure to get to work with a number of college students who have volunteered in the student ministry where I served as youth pastor. During that time I like to think I was able to impart sound Biblical advice to them and took a small role in their continual growth with the Lord. It never failed that sometime in our times of talking that they would open up to me about where they were with the Lord.
Many of them confessed with concern that they were not feeling the way they had when they first got to college, or got involved with our church. In some ways what they wanted was to know how to get "it" back, or reassurance that they were okay. I identified with their feelings and worries because years before they went through this feeling of a spiritual valley, I also had the same experience with the same concerns that they expressed to me. My hunch is that this is something that is much more broad among Christians than what I've witnessed, but is a truth of many of our stories with the Lord.
Sadly, too often in Christian circles weight is put on how we "feel" in our relationship with the Lord. Buzzwords like passion, experience, and zeal lead people to think that spiritual maturity is reflected mostly by excitement and enthusiasm. To say it another way, Christians begin to think that their walk with the Lord must be characterized by these feelings otherwise it isn't being lived out completely.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't have a passion for Jesus Christ, that our emotions shouldn't be displaying our love and gratitude to Him, or that there shouldn't be excitement as we learn more about Him. The Great Commandment teaches that we are to love the Lord with all of our being, including our emotions. What I am saying is that we need to think logically about our feelings being a barometer for our spiritual state.
Its logical that we will experience times when we are growing, learning, and maturing at a quick rate that causes us to feel more close and in step with the Lord. But as with anything you can't keep that pace up. When you begin a new book often its easy to read quickly through the first few chapters, but it becomes slow moving as you continue through that same book. Why? Because you've heard some of these points now, its not as cutting edge or exciting the fourth time the authors referenced the same point. In the same way, our relationship with the Lord is a walk and a process. There will be periods where we feel close to the Lord, others where we don't.
This is where faithfulness comes in. Paul states, "It is required of stewards that one be found faithful," in 1 Cor. 4:2. In other words, a person who desires to be a servant of Christ, or a minister of the gospel they have to be faithful or trustworthy. Notice the requirement is not to have that passion for Christ, that feeling in your gut, or anything else related to emotion. Instead the requirement is very tangible, its something that can be seen, practiced, even measured, its faithfulness. Faithfulness is remaining true to the Lord Jesus and walking in obedience to God's Word. Faithfulness is determined not in days or weeks, but in years and decades. Faithfulness pushes through difficulties and dry periods, and flourishes at times of growth and development. Faithfulness isn't determined by passion, feelings, but is based on obedience and discipline.
For many of us its easy to love the Lord and be obedient to His Word when we feel close to Him, when we are learning and growing. The challenge we face as followers of Christ is to love Christ by obeying His Word in the dry seasons when we don't feel like we are growing or learning like we did before. That is the test of faithfulness and the example that Jesus has shown to us. Find comfort in these words, "even when we are faithless, He remains faithful."
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