Right now I’m reading through Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. One interesting concept that I’ve been reading about is his take on loving God. He deals with the dilemma we all face about basing our love for God or our spouse or others on our feelings. Regarding love for God he says,
“They [people] are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it… Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will… He will give us feelings of love if he pleases. We cannot create them ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right.”
Sometimes I think we (myself included) are inclined to love God or worship God or pray to God only when we have strong feelings of love toward him. If that is the only time we pursue God (i.e. when we feel like it) it proves that our love is fickle and immature.
I thank God for the times when I feel intense love for him and my heart is awakened by revelation. At the same time though my love for God cannot be dependent on my feelings. Lewis alludes to the fact that feelings come and go and cannot be manufactured. They are also not principally what God cares about.
In the same way that a husband and wife’s love matures and is strengthened through time and testing, so our love for God is refined and purified through spiritual drought seasons. That is, when we feel no love for God, the resolve of our will to love him anyway strengthens and matures our love for him. In the same way that a marriage cannot be built on a feeling, so our relationship with God cannot be built on our feelings.
As a side note, though our love for God is immature it does not mean that God does not regard it as real and genuine. This side of eternity we will all be growing in our love for God and none of us will ever perfectly arrive. His love for us never changes and is not dependent on our performance.
So how can we mature in our love for God?
I can think of at least three things, there are probably more, but basically:
1. We must realize that love is not a feeling, but rather a resolve of the will.
2. We must realize that feelings of love will come and go.
3. When the feelings are gone (and this will happen) we must resolve to love God for who he is and what he has done not because of what he can do for us or how we feel.
In this way, as our love for God is tested through seasons of suffering or drought, our love for God becomes more and more mature. The cool thing about God’s grace is that when we choose to love him regardless of how we feel, he tends to bless us with feelings of love more often. The old principle is true: Faith does not follow feelings, feelings follow faith.
Any thoughts on this?
