Feelings and Faith: Mountaintop Moments
Maybe, like me, you can recall a heady moment that sparked a sense of God's nearness. Even after knowing God intellectually for years, some experiences can cause us to feel him intensely with our senses – like a spiritual high. I remember having such experiences after each of my three sons was born, as I saw their faces for the first time. Another time, while sailing, I felt a similar awareness of God when a pod of spinner dolphins suddenly appeared, whirling and jumping ahead of the boat. Wonder is a common vehicle for sensing God.
Whether sparked by otherworldly sights in nature, the marvel of new life, or stirring worship music, spiritual highs are known as "Mountaintop Moments" in Christian vernacular. These times are often marked by astonishment, awe, or joy, as if experiencing God on a new level. Although such memories are gifts to be treasured, counting on emotional highs as proof of God's existence, work, or nearness may be risky. Feelings are not reliable indicators of God's presence or our union with him.
The gospel (that Christ paid the price for our sins so that, by receiving his gift of grace, we are forgiven and given eternal life) is good news that should stoke joy and bring peace. And the fruit of the Holy Spirit includes positive emotions that often defy logic in a given circumstance. However, in a world full of brokenness, affliction, and suffering, pursuing positive feelings as a spiritual goal or relying on them as proof of unity with God may lead to a significant problem. Lacking a steady supply of spiritual highs, we may struggle to persevere in our faith. If we rest our faith on good vibes, the infrequency or absence of mountaintop moments may cause us to doubt God or question our salvation.
Much of Christian life is not marked by awe-inspiring spiritual highs. Problems, conflicts, and sorrows plague us. In our struggles, we may not feel good. Even worship may sometimes drive us to despair rather than joy. As we contemplate God's glory, the vast divide between the kingdom to come and our current reality becomes painfully apparent.
Of course, God designed us to know and experience him with all aspects of our being, including our emotions. At times, we may feel the connection in deeply moving ways. However, emotions are not the fuel God intended to drive our steadfast pursuit of Him. Whether we feel "God-vibes" flowing deep in our souls or not, faith, not feelings, is the evidence of what we hope for in Christ.
Over many years of working with high school and college students in our church, it was not uncommon to see some abandon the faith when the nearness they felt to God on a retreat did not seem as tangible in their daily lives. And it is not just young believers who mistakenly count on emotional highs for faith sustenance. I have known many adults who walked away from life with God because they "weren't feeling it."
We all hear the world loudly telling us that feelings are truth and that we should act on them. The Bible tells us the opposite. God does not say, "Be still and feel that I am God." Instead, he says, "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). Emotions are fickle, but we can always know he is real and his words are true, even when our feelings run counter to our knowledge. For example, we can know that God is near to us when we are brokenhearted, even when we feel alone. We can know God has forgiven our sins even when we still struggle with shame. We can know God is slowly maturing our faith even when we feel like we are not growing.
Spiritual highs are like brief interludes of alignment between head knowledge and heart feelings, like a glimpse of heaven. But ironically, we are more likely to experience the reality, presence, and awesomeness of God in our lowest moments rather than our highest. One of my most profound experiences of God was not on a mountaintop but in a valley – the night I sat with my grandfather as he died.
In daily life, the emotional fruit of the Spirit tends to appear as a steady, calm undercurrent rather than a volcanic eruption. God did not give us emotions to drive us inward to bliss, but rather to turn our hearts upward into worship and outward into service. And the most common way to experience God on an emotional level is through simple acts of faith, such as prayer and Bible reading.
But whether our feelings soar or sink as we faithfully pursue Christ, we can rest in the assurance that our union with him is secure, eternal, and real.
Even if we rarely (or never) experience mountaintop moments in our walk with Christ, or if we struggle to recognize or receive the emotional gifts of the Spirit amid our worldly trials, we can persevere and press on in faith. Like Christ, who endured the cross for the joy set before him, we have joy always set before us. Because this is true, we can live with complete assurance that, no matter how we feel in any given moment, God has planned an eternity filled with mountaintop moments for us in the next.
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photo credit: Jacqueline Munguia on Unsplash