Strength for the Soul

ARTICLES OF ENCOURAGEMENT: WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU CAN'T FEEL GOD'S LOVE

When Woman Walk Alove Devotional book cover

"I've lived for years in a loveless marriage," a woman I'll call "Jean" told me after a speaking event in which I talked about God's pursuing love.

Jean knew from Scripture that the Lord is her "spiritual husband." But, she struggled with feeling God's love and presence in her life.

"For years, I asked God to help me feel His love," she said. "I wanted to know He was there but it was so difficult for me to sense His presence. If I don't know what it's like to feel my husband's love, how can I fathom what God's love for me is like?"

Because Jean was looking for something tangible, something emotional, she continued to feel unloved and alone.

Then one day, another woman showed Jean the facts from Scripture about God's love for her. And today when she begins to doubt her Savior's love, she turns to the hard evidence found in God's Word.

Sometimes, like Jean, we don't feel God's love, either. We feel only the sting of an insult, the ache of loneliness, the pain of an unhealed wound. We feel rejection in relationships – or lack of them. And we feel the isolation that comes from longing for something more. But those are the times we need to rely on the facts, rather than our feelings, to know God is who He says He is and He loves us far more than we can imagine. God presented the facts – evidence of His love for us – in Scripture.

The facts are that:

God says "without faith it is impossible to please God." Therefore, we are not to rely on feelings, but to have faith in the facts. Feelings change depending on our circumstances, our moods, our hormones. Facts stay the same, regardless. When faith comes first – "I will believe it because He said it" – the feelings sometimes follow.

In 1 John 4:9-10, Scripture says: "This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

Notice how that verse doesn't say: "This is how God showed his love among us; he gave us a person to walk intimately by our side, He made sure we had all the money we would ever need, and He ensured we would never feel rejection, pain or disappointment in this world." I'm certain if God did all of that for us, we would never feel the need for God's love. We would, probably, not acknowledge Him at all.

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