Some days the sun doesn’t seem to shine,
and my heart struggles with the darkness.
I don’t feel loved.
I don’t feel right.
I don’t feel like serving.
I don’t feel saved or kept or redeemed.

These are the fertile days of faith –
days when all I can do is take the next step,
do the next thing,
not because it feels right
but because God says
it IS right.

These dark days force me to walk in faith,
simply trusting that God will perfect His work.

These are the days 
I give in faith,
I love in faith,
I reach out in faith,
I serve with faithfulness,
knowing the feelings do not necessarily
precede the doing.
I cannot use my lack of feelings
as a reason not to obey
what God has said.

Feelings follow obedience, 
like box cars follow the train’s engine.

Too often I expect an experience
when God says that faith is the experience.
He calls me to faithful obedience.

Feelings cannot be the engine;
they cannot lead the way.

Faith operates in the dark 
just as it operates in the light.

Faith looks upward to God rather
than inward to my fickle feelings.

Faith calls me to obedience.
Faith sets my eyes on God.

Hebrews 11: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.² For by it the elders obtained a good report.³ Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

I John 5:4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Photo – Holding Fast, Beth Mims