In my spiritual life I see my emotions and faith in God seesaw up and down. For days I am up and full of joy, thanking God for everything. Then one day, something happens and I am down. I feel frightened and overwhelmed, sad and discouraged. Because of that I then feel embarrassed my faith is so weak. Joyce Meyer has taught me to quote scripture during these times and I usually remember to do that. But what gets me is how fast I can plummet from faith to despair!
My daughter told me I can't feel happy all the time. True, but I think what I meant was having peace all the time. When I don't, I feel guilty and believe I have let the Lord down. When I was thinking about this, I remembered Elijah and how he worked for God on the mountain top, praying for fire from heaven that did come down and proved to the people God was God and not the idol Baal. Then that evening Elijah got frightened and fled from Queen Jezebel who had threatened to kill him.
After Elijah had run for 40 days God came and asked him twice, "Elijah, what are you doing here?" Then He sent him back to finish the work God had for him to do. God had not sent Elijah into the wilderness. And God was so gentle towards Elijah's lack of faith.
I guess if Elijah can get frightened and try to run away, I shouldn't feel so bad about myself. I'm no Elijah.
