When You Just Don’t Feel Like It

During the first week of homework from the Falling In Love Again With Your Husband study, over two days, Laurie asked participants to read through Psalm 119.

The homework prompted participants on day four of the first week, “Read verses 1-88. As you read, observe the psalmist’s affections and feelings toward God and toward the law. Also note what the psalmist says he has done or has determined to do with regard to the law and his petitions, requests, and pleas. When you are finished, write your own thoughts, affections, petitions, and desires in the space provided,” (pg 11).

Eighty-eight verses is a lot of verses. The next day participants were asked to read verses 89 through the end of the Psalm, which was another 87 verses. As a current participant in this study I will tell you that I did not want to submit to this request. Reading through those verses was going to take longer than I had planned to take in my quiet time those two mornings. I was thinking to myself that I have read this Psalm many times before so I don’t need to again. Begrudgingly I started to read the verses anyway. The Lord, in His lovingkindness, brought fresh perspective to the Psalm and allowed me to gain new insight. I had never truly paid attention to the amount of love that David had for God’s word and how much David had to cling to God’s word.

Current study participants meet weekly to get together in a small group to have homework discussion and to confess our sin that the Lord has revealed to us. During my small group’s discussion time we talked about how none of us had wanted to read that Psalm again, but how in the end it was the most refreshing part of the study. The greatest refreshment for each of us came straight from the Word of God.

Thistlebend is currently asking for feedback from study participants. The question was asked, “What was the most helpful part of the Foundational Overview homework?” Many answers seemed to be the same.

“The focus on the Bible and how it is a part of our relationship with the Lord. I liked the Psalm expressing joy about God’s word,” current Thistlebend participant.

“Loved Psalm 119….Came alive to me in a very powerful way,” current Thistlebend participant.

“Just being in the Word. Loved Psalm 119,” current Thistlebend participant.

As I thought more about this and read through the comments from other participants, it was a sweet reminder that sometimes we’re just not going to “feel” it. We’re not always going to feel like we want to read God’s word. We’re not always going to feel like obeying. We’re not always going to feel like serving our husbands and putting them above ourselves. Why? Because our flesh still dwells within us and our flesh directly opposes the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:17), which is our new identity if Jesus is our Savior.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul…,” (Psalm 19:7a). This is truly what happened to me and many other study participants. In spite of our flesh feelings, by God’s grace, we submitted to Laurie’s request in our homework and we read God’s word and it revived our souls.

Have you ever experienced this before? You followed God’s word even when you didn’t feel like it, how did it go?

Maybe it’s really hard for you to do something if you don’t feel like it, it’s really hard for me! We would love to hear that too, what’s a struggle for you?

Maybe you’ve read the Word of God and it didn’t revive your soul, or maybe you’ve read and obeyed and things still went wrong in your eyes. This is hard and it’s happened to me before too, what do you do then?

Please share, you are not alone!

Planted for His Glory