Recently on
Facebook, twice now on my feed I have seen a meme which says
something to the effect of “You can really only ever enjoy two
things in life, Serotonin and Dopamine.” For those that don’t
know, these are two neurotransmitters in the human nervous system
which have to do with feelings of pleasure and well being. Chemically
or neurologically speaking, you can’t feel happy without these two
chemicals being released into the synapses of your brain..
I was reflecting on
this at church this morning during the worship part of the service.
The church we currently attend has a contemporary type worship
service with a band and regular worship leaders and singers. Those
who sing and lead worship are very good at what they do and I dare
say could probably sing professionally. The music being sung and the
feeling in the room are positive, uplifting, and as I was watching,
most people participating had their arms outstretched and were
singing with profound emotion lead in various ways by the meaning of
the words, the sincere expressions of those leading it, and the
melodies and beat of the music.
There is nothing
wrong with feeling sincere emotion during a church service. People
are frequently affected emotionally in a positive way and are moved
to devotion, love, faith, and repentance by that emotional
outpouring. Let me be clear about that before I go on so that I am
not misunderstood.
Frequently,
in many church services and in many churches that I have attended,
people make the mistake that what they are feeling at the moment is
the Holy Spirit. Now, it is perfectly possible for the Holy Spirit to
bring about those feelings in the same way that being with a much
loved friend or significant other can bring about those feelings. But
where the problem comes in, and I have seen and heard this from
people, is that when those feelings die down, they feel like somehow
God has left them. In response to this, they then do whatever they
can to bring about the return of those positive feelings and “get
pumped for Jesus” in order to “revive” the Holy Spirit within
them.
It
is a mistake to confuse the Holy Spirit's presence or control with
emotion. I have experienced both enough times in my life to have
established a baseline for recognizing both. Emotion feels great for
a time and makes you more susceptible to follow the crowd around you.
It's a little like intoxication, removing inhibitions and making you
feel more than you are due to the increased flow of those
neurotransmitters I mentioned at the beginning of this Ramble. When
the emotions die down however, it's like crashing after a high and
the person wonders why the "Spirit" has left, sometimes
even doubting their salvation or whether or not God really loves
them.
The
control and presence of the Holy Spirit is an entirely different
experience. When this has happened with me, there has rarely been any
change in my emotional state, but I often suddenly know things or say
things that I wouldn't or couldn't have before. I am able to
empathize with and see into other people in ways that are not
naturally possible for me. There is a lovingkindness and compassion
that projects from within out towards the other person, or towards me
personally. This possession by Him tends to be calm, and if there are
any emotions attached to it, they never originate with me. I have
felt both His overwhelming love, and His intense anger, as well as
His resignation to a humanity that is hell bent on destroying itself.
But there is always that knowing sense that it is a cooperation and
not from me.
The truth is that
God does not leave. By the very nature of His existence, He is
literally everywhere you are, and everywhere any part of creation
exists. There are times when He allows us to have an almost tangible
awareness of this constant presence around and within us, but there
are also times when it seems like either He withdraws our awareness
of His presence, or we simply stop paying attention to His constant
presence and lose our awareness of it that way. And when those times
happen it can feel as though we have been plunged into a pitch dark
room, and we can begin to panic.
The thing about
rooms when they are pitch dark, there is no real difference to them
than when all the lights were turned on. The design of the room
hasn’t changed. The furniture hasn’t been moved. It’s exactly
the same as when the lights were on. The only thing which has changed
is our ability to sense it, and this is what causes the panic which
rises within us.
The emotional lows
which can happen through either the worship feelings wearing off or
from bad circumstances happening around us can make it feel like
we’ve been plunged into that pitch dark room. The crash from the
high created by the dialing back of the Serotonin and Dopamine to be
replaced by neurotransmitters dealing with stress and fear responses
can be terrifying and depressing. But none of these chemical
emotional reactions give any real indication of how near or far God
is from us. Whether we are feeling positive or negative has no
bearing on the reality of His presence around us or His concern or
care for us or anyone else. Just because the light has been turned
off, doesn’t mean the room has changed. Just because the music
fades, doesn’t mean He’s not still there. God can stir emotions,
but He is not emotion. There can be good feelings associated with
Him, but He is not those good feelings.
Understanding the
difference takes time and experience getting to know Him, and it’s
very easy to allow yourself to make this mistake as you try and
discern the distinction between Him and your own thoughts, emotions,
and inner demons. His voice and promptings, His “cues”, are
frequently quiet, and all too easily ignored or missed if you’re
not intentionally paying attention, and can be missed altogether if
you’re too caught up in your own “stuff.” They may be of
profound import, or they may even seem somewhat mundane but in your
best interests.
The other night, I
wanted to go and get some kind of cereal. I’ve been having more
stomach issues lately due to stress, and sometimes it can help settle
my stomach. But instead of going to the “cheap” supermarket I
normally would, I got the distinct direction to go to the store that
I knew would be more expensive. Since I also knew that I’d be able
to get my wife’s salad mix there cheaper (ironically) than at the
“cheap” store, I headed over to the more expensive one, and if I
were to be honest, not really expecting to find anything. When I
picked up the salad mix, I headed over to the cereal aisle to find
something. Lo and behold, the only cold cereal which my whole family
can eat (my family having severe food allergies) was on sale for
$1.99 a box, almost half off the regular price. It was a little
thing, and certainly not earth shatteringly important, but He
directed me to that particular store against all conventional wisdom
to find the only cereal we could eat on sale. It was not an emotion,
it was not a feeling positive or negative, it was just this inaudible
understanding that I should go to the other store instead of the one
I had intended to. No further explanation, not telling me what I
would find there, or even what I was looking for exactly. Just “I
think you should head to this place instead of that place.”
There is a term used
among ancient Christian writers called a “Holy Darkness”. It’s
used to describe this inability to use our senses to experience God
as He is. It’s the pitch black room we have to navigate in our
getting to know Him personally. It’s the understanding that He is
something “other” than our brain trying to interpret the world
around it. This Holy Darkness can be disorienting much as the room
without light. But with experience and patience, it can be navigated
and explored and in the process of doing so we discover the One who
has been there all along.
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