That Feeling

The other day, well, in all honesty about three weeks ago, I was watching Sports Center and there was a commercial on about the NBA Playoffs. Somewhere along the line I wrote down a quote from the commercial but lost it so I will paraphrase. LeBron was talking as clips of his basketball greatness were being showcased and at the end of his speech he spoke of why he worked all season. He reason: to get back to that feeling that he had during the final moments of the playoffs. It was the feeling of riding high on the clouds of winning a championship that made him work through all the two-a-days, off-season practices and time in the weight room.
We as people seem to love feelings these days. I don't think it's always a bad thing, but it can be when they are the only glue that holds us to relationships. Look at marriages today. A lot of people change the vows "Til death do us part" to "Til love leaves us." We have forgotten that, though feelings are good, commitments should be stronger. Marriage is a promise that you make to another person to commit no matter what. Your feelings have nothing to do with it. Sure, it's great to feel puppy-dog love with doe eyes and hearts a-flutter, but that fades. Always. No relationship will feel the same as it did in the very beginning seven years and hundreds of trials later, nor should it. If you stick it out, it will be stronger, but you may not get butterflies when you hold hands.
Today, my husband Jason and I have been married for two years. The years have had moments of complete bliss. But we've also have dealt with our share of stresses and I love him more because of what we've overcome together. The lows help us to appreciate the highs and the more we go through, the more I understand our fierce commitment to one another, which is way stronger than a love based on solely on feelings.
The same is true of our relationship with God. I meet and speak with a lot of women who base their relationship with God on feelings. We need, however, to base our relationship with God on his truth and promises. Most of us don't always feel like getting up and going to work everyday of our lives, but we do it anyway. We need this same perseverance with God. Please don't mistake me, God does give us wow moments to help us. We have all had our NBA Championship moments with God and we should use those as a focus during the times when we don't feel so on fire and ready to change the world. But what do we do in the valleys? What do we do during the times when we don't really feel that passionate love of God?
Well, in Revelation there is a letter to the Church in Ephesus that was helpful at the time while being prophetic. They had this problem of lost love that we have today and Jesus helped them out. "You have persevered, and endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first' (Revelation 2:3-5). These people have gone through some hardships. They have been working their tails off for God, but have forgotten why they do it. They have lost the feeling. It has become monotonous and habitual. So here, the people of today might expect Jesus to say, "Repent and feel what you did at first," but he doesn't. He says to do what you did first. 
You see, when we get back to the basics, we start to feel again. If your marriage is struggling, try acting like you're dating again, I bet it will help you to remember why you fell in love in the first place. And with God, get back into his Word. I bet when you first became a Christian, you couldn't get enough of all he had to say. You couldn't offer enough praise, pray enough prayers or smile big enough. Do what you did before and the feelings will follow. Don't wait to feel, you may spend a long time waiting. Be proactive and do.
I'll leave you with one last thought. Do you know the word Jesus uses when he speaks of our love for God? There are five different words for love in Greek, all with different meaning and the Bible uses three of them. In this, Jesus' Greek translation of the She'ma, the greatest commandment in the Old Testament, to love the lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, is the same word he uses when he tells us to love our enemies (Matthew 22:37 and Matthew 5:44). He uses the root word agape. He could have used eros, which translates into passionate, almost sexual love, all about feelings. But he uses agape, which speaks of a love of choice. We must choose to love God through all circumstances, not only when it feels good. In John 3:16, it is again this agape love of choice given as the reason why God sent his only Son to die for us. It certainly didn't feel good for God to watch his only Son die, but he chose this to ultimately show his love for us. So when you don't feel like loving God or people, do it anyway and the feelings will follow. God asks you for agape love and that is a choice. And I promise, this agape love is so much stronger and deeper than eros love could ever be. So do what you once did and return to your first love. You will have that championship moment again someday, but you will also dwell in the power knowing that love is not as fickle as a feeling, but as strong as a covenant made by choice and sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ.