The Good War Against Moods: How Stubborn Faith Overcomes Feelings

Christian Hedonism emphasizes the value of emotions. The Bible commands us to delight in the Lord, to appreciate mercy, to dread God, to rejoice in hope. Thoughts are critical to the obedient Christian daily life.

At the very same time, Christian Hedonism recognizes that not all feelings are godly emotions. Not all thoughts are devoted inner thoughts. Not all affections are holy affections. Emotions are not constantly our friends. Significantly from serving worship of God, they can hinder and undermine it.

“Not all thoughts are devoted feelings. Not all affections are holy affections.”

It is my expanding conviction that we will need to create (or recover) a a lot more robust vocabulary for describing several classes of thoughts and emotions. In individual, it appears superior to distinguish involving fast and impulsive feelings that are rooted in the soul but carefully tied to our bodies, on the a single hand, and further, extra steady thoughts that are workouts of our will, on the other. The former we can simply call passions the latter we can simply call affections. With a tiny assist from the apostle Peter and C.S. Lewis, we can see the worth of making this style of distinction amongst instant (and superficial) passions and deeper (or bigger) affections.

Established Your Hope on Grace

Initial, contemplate Peter’s exhortation in 1 Peter 1:13–16.

Preparing your minds for action, and staying sober-minded, established your hope totally on the grace that will be introduced to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient youngsters, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who identified as you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, given that it is penned, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Discover the a few phrases in verse 13: (1) “preparing your minds for action,” (2) “being sober-minded,” and (3) “set your hope absolutely on the grace that will be introduced to you.”

The first phrase actually implies “girding up the loins of your intellect.” To use a modern impression, we could say, “rolling up the sleeves of your thoughts.” Peter phone calls them to get ready to do some significant mental do the job, the kind that takes hard work. This is not roll-out-of-bed-in-your-pajamas get the job done. This is get-your-operate-outfits-on, make-guaranteed-your-sneakers-are-tied, get-your-activity-encounter-on perform.

The second phrase refers to the reverse of drunkenness. Be sober-minded. Now, drunkenness impairs our notion, our judgment, our reaction moments. So the reverse of drunkenness is an alertness, a clarity of brain, a steadiness. So roll up the sleeves of your mind, get crystal clear and regular, and then what?

The remaining phrase phone calls for a unique affectionate reaction. Hope is a potential-oriented passion. It is a happy-hearted expectation of one thing excellent that is coming. We don’t but have it we really do not hope for what we presently have. And Peter is aware of it is far way too quick to be distracted by the cares and anxieties of this planet, to appear to the potential with panic alternatively than religion. And so he exhorts us: Roll up the sleeves of our thoughts, get apparent and constant, and then set your hope completely on the grace that will be introduced to you. You have been born yet again to a living hope, an imperishable inheritance (1 Peter 1:3–5). Now set your hope totally on the tidal wave of coming grace.

What Are Passions?

Now, why is environment our hope in this way so important? The future verse expresses the hazard. “As obedient small children, do not be conformed to the passions of your previous ignorance” (1 Peter 1:14).

Passions are the fast and intuitive and impulsive workout routines of the soul that are carefully tied to the entire body. Passions can be excellent. Paul needs to depart and be with Christ (Philippians 1:23), using the exact word translated as passions in 1 Peter 1. Having said that, routinely the phrase passions in the Bible refers to sinful and ungodly passions. In other places in 1 Peter, they are known as “passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). They are joined with vices like sensuality, sexual immorality, drunkenness, and lawless idolatry (1 Peter 4:3). As human passions, they are opposed to the will of God (1 Peter 4:2). And these passions want to lead. They want to get us somewhere. If we follow them, then we indulge or gratify our passions, and they begin to conform us to their picture.

So Peter depicts a conflict between an passion (hope) that involves critical mental energy, and the fleshly passions that wage war against our soul. And this is exactly where Lewis is so valuable.

Blitz From Perception

Lewis is aware that the human brain is not fully governed by rationale. There’s generally a conflict amongst what we know to be true and what our emotions (or passions) and our imaginations explain to us is true. He states the moment an individual has accepted the gospel, here’s what will inevitably happen:

There will arrive a moment when there is lousy information, or he is in trouble, or is living among the a large amount of other people who do not imagine it, and all at the moment his emotions will rise up and have out a form of blitz on his perception. Or else there will occur a second when he would like a girl, or wants to notify a lie, or feels extremely happy with himself, or sees a chance of generating a little funds in some way that is not correctly fair: some instant, in point, at which it would be incredibly handy if Christianity were not accurate. And after again his wishes and needs will have out a blitz. I am not speaking of moments at which any serious new explanations versus Christianity convert up. Those people have to be confronted and that is a various make a difference. I am speaking about moments when a mere temper rises up towards it.⁠ (Mere Christianity, 140)

Lewis knows that our moods pose a real hazard to our faith. Somewhere else he claims,

Our faith in Christ wavers not so substantially when authentic arguments occur against it as when it seems to be inconceivable — when the entire planet can take on that desolate search which really tells us a great deal far more about the state of our passions and even our digestion than about actuality. . . . When once enthusiasm can take part in the activity, the human rationale, unassisted by Grace, has about as considerably probability of retaining its keep on truths now obtained as a snowflake has of retaining its consistency in the mouth of a blast furnace. (Christian Reflections, 43)

In the grip of passions, all kinds of doubtful and preposterous arguments commence to look plausible. Our moods truly do impact our religion, and our moods are usually affected by our bodies — what we have eaten, how nicely we’ve slept, no matter if we have exercised — as well as by our situation or even the climate. In my have daily life, I have regularly had to face these kinds of unbelieving moods, these foggy clouds of imprecise unbelief that seem to settle above my soul.

Steering Elephants

How do Peter and Lewis help me in the facial area of these moods? Initial, by enabling me to figure out them as passion-pushed moods. This form of unbelief is a fog that clouds considering. That is why we have to roll up our sleeves and clear our heads in get to set our hope.

Second, they persuade me to pray for the present of religion, for “the electricity to go on believing not in the teeth of motive but in the teeth of lust and terror and jealousy and boredom and indifference that which reason, authority, or encounter, or all a few, have once sent to us for truth” (43).

“Faith is the art of keeping on to what we have thought in the deal with of our modifying moods.”

Now religion, or what Peter in this article phone calls “setting your hope totally,” is the art of keeping on to what we have thought in the face of our shifting moods. There’s a kind of rebellion of our moods versus our real self. Our sinful passions wage war towards our souls. Our decreased, superficial, and instant emotions search for to grab the steering wheel, leaving our increased faculties to path alongside powering.

To use an impression from Jonathan Haidt, it’s a little bit like seeking to journey an elephant. The elephant (our passions and moods) is sturdy and highly effective and lurches left and ideal. But if we roll up our sleeves and stay clearheaded and continual, we can, by grace, learn to steer the elephant. We can convey to our moods wherever they get off.

Stubborn Faith

Lewis calls this “practicing our faith.” Continuously engaging in the exercise of our religion turns that practice into the practice of religion, a form of persevering dedication and affectionate commitment to the real truth that we have been given. Accurate faith is a stubborn point.

Cultivating this practice is no simple undertaking. It involves ongoing work. It’s why we daily look for to deliver the truths of Scripture in advance of our minds. It is why we labor to pray continually and continually, luckily and humbly calling on God as our Father for enable. It’s why we assemble with other believers to encourage every single other in the religion and stir a single a different up to enjoy and good deeds. These patterns of grace are strategies that we roll up the sleeves of our head and soberly established our hope on potential grace.