Well Said. Nothing worth doing consistently "feels good" all the time. The initial excitement of going to the gym will fade away as you wake up to sore muscles within a few days. The anticipation of learning a new language is replaced with the drudgery of practicing inconsistent grammar rules. A cool programming project becomes boring as you fix stupid bugs and edge cases.
Feelings can give us a kickstart but we ought to to sustain ourselves on something deeper. I think the modern west puts too much emphasis on feelings. I don't think its a coincidence that some teachers are criticized for not making class "entertaining" as if the object of education is entertainment; or how in dating, there's so much emphasis on "being in love" as if that's the sole foundation of a relationship.
To be clear, feelings are awesome! But they are transient. It's not so much that we should be content with a dry soul, but that we must look deeper during the dry periods. The nice feelings will eventually comeback, but they'll eventually go away. Such is life. Our hearts jump through peaks and valleys but our resolve must remain unchanged.
Yes I'm so happy you said this. I find this most obvious when you examine the way different people pray. For example people at my mom's church have to pour their heart out and reach inside for their own words and the prayers have to come out like a Hallmark gift card writer. Not that I'm saying there is never a time where this happens. But they look down on our Liturgy of Hours for example.
I debated with myself about posting it. I thought maybe it would be too "heavy" or edgy for some people. The ideas come from my reading of St John of the Cross. He helped me so much back in the day, when I was trying to figure out what was going on in my own relationship with the Lord.
Well Said. Nothing worth doing consistently "feels good" all the time. The initial excitement of going to the gym will fade away as you wake up to sore muscles within a few days. The anticipation of learning a new language is replaced with the drudgery of practicing inconsistent grammar rules. A cool programming project becomes boring as you fix stupid bugs and edge cases.
Feelings can give us a kickstart but we ought to to sustain ourselves on something deeper. I think the modern west puts too much emphasis on feelings. I don't think its a coincidence that some teachers are criticized for not making class "entertaining" as if the object of education is entertainment; or how in dating, there's so much emphasis on "being in love" as if that's the sole foundation of a relationship.
To be clear, feelings are awesome! But they are transient. It's not so much that we should be content with a dry soul, but that we must look deeper during the dry periods. The nice feelings will eventually comeback, but they'll eventually go away. Such is life. Our hearts jump through peaks and valleys but our resolve must remain unchanged.
Yes I'm so happy you said this. I find this most obvious when you examine the way different people pray. For example people at my mom's church have to pour their heart out and reach inside for their own words and the prayers have to come out like a Hallmark gift card writer. Not that I'm saying there is never a time where this happens. But they look down on our Liturgy of Hours for example.
I debated with myself about posting it. I thought maybe it would be too "heavy" or edgy for some people. The ideas come from my reading of St John of the Cross. He helped me so much back in the day, when I was trying to figure out what was going on in my own relationship with the Lord.