when you feel numb

You get up on Sunday morning, get some coffee, have a quick devotion, have some breakfast, take a shower and head off to church. If your children are like mine, you would have to make multiple pleas for them to get up from bed and get ready for church. Upon entering into the sanctuary, you hear some loud hellos, some giggles, some high-fives and see some warm hugs. As you greet fellow brothers and sisters, you're excited for yet another sunday to worship the Lord. What a privilege and a blessing indeed!

As the singers begin to sing beautiful gospel songs with rich theological meaning accompanied by sweet instrumentation, you suddenly feel like you're just going through the motions. The lyrics in the song are not penetrating into your heart. Your heart is not warmed. You feel uncomfortable. When the pastor begins to exposit the word, you find it difficult to focus. Your mind wanders just for a little bit and with all your might you try to regain your focus. You look at your Bible, you find it hard to keep track of all the cross-references. You look around, you notice people seem to be enjoying the preaching and taking notes. You admire their devotion. Now the dissonance between the preaching and your heart becomes even more palpable. You feel numb. You are disappointed at the lack of spiritual response in your heart and guilt settles over you. Sunday service now becomes a drab that you only aim to get through it. Instead of returning home with joy, you come home with a sense of guilt. If this is your experience, you're not a stranger to the struggles that Christians experience. My goal in this blog is to show you why we struggle with spiritual numbness and explore some potential tools that could help us fight this battle as we strive for joy in Christ.

You're Not Alone

" I am like the deaf, who cannot hear, like the mute, who cannot speak; I have become like one who does not hear, whose mouth can offer no reply ( Ps 38:13,14) NIV." In case, you're wondering who spoke these words, they are the words of David, the Psalmist. David writes these words when he is going through an awful lot of pain. David alludes to his personal sin for the pain (Ps. 38:4). He says he is overwhelmed by his guilt ( Ps. 38:5). But David knows who is behind his pain. It is God who is throwing the arrows at him and they are painful ( Ps. 38:2). While this is a tremendously emotional psalm, counter-intuitively, he says that he has become like the deaf and the mute. He is unable to respond to all that is going on within him and externally. He is physically tired and emotionally scared. He is unable to hear and speak. There are pain, sadness, guilt, and fear meshed up in his deafness and muteness. He is genuinely scared about the internal cacophony of the screams of his fears and anxieties and he wants to shut them down by becoming deaf. He does not want to speak of his experiences for the fear of hearing them again from his own mouth; thereby avoiding being stuck in the echo-chamber. David's experiences are impacting his soul.

Friend, you're not alone in this battle. Like David, when your sin bleeds in with your suffering, it impacts your soul. When you feel overwhelmed with what's going on, either knowingly or unkowingly, you want to shut down your capacity to reason and respond emotionally. There is too much pain to process and you don't want to do that. It is understandable. You want to be deaf. You want to be mute. You wish the whole world around you had frozen. But you cannot stop there. You don't have to live in a perpetual place of despair that causes numbness.

Digital Delusion

Heart-numbing is a result of something that happens over a long time. What you're exposed to is what you become ( Ps. 115:8). In his poem, ' Jimmy Jet and His TV Set', Shel Silverstein writes about a guy who takes the form of a TV set after watching it for endless hours. He writes, " he watched his eyes frozen wide, and his bottom grew into his chair. And his chin turned into a tuning dial, and antenna grew out of his hair. And his brains turned into TV tubes, and his face to a TV screen. And two knobs saying "VERT" and "HORITZ".."[1] If he were to write a poem today, it might be about the cell phone.

One pastor said, " when Steven Jobs invented screens, our lives changed." True, cell phones have become an extension of our arms, so to speak. But, here is the question: Why are we particularly drawn to screens, whether TVs or cell phones, when we are tired? And, why do we feel the pull to check our screens every now and again? I think we seek reward, pleasure, satisfaction, and rest from the screens. But what if you're looking for those things in the wrong places? The more you're drawn towards the screen, the stronger its pull becomes. The screen time gives you momentary satisfaction, but leaves you deluded. The bottom line is when you're tired, you need rest. When you scroll the screen endlessly, you've become an involuntary slave to restlessness. Restlessness manifests itself in numbness.

The Idolatry of Feelings

'Feelings' are a gift from the Lord. 'Feelings' are what make human beings seperate from animals. Without feelings, this beautiful world is nothing but just physical material. If that is the case, your tears, laughter, grief, joy, and passion absolutely become meaningless and purposeless. But how we thank the Lord that he has given us the gift of feelings to express different types of emotional experiences. Though as a result of living in this fallen world our feelings are tainted and twisted, the gift of feelings in and itself is not bad.

Feelings are the indicators of our beliefs, desires and committments. They all converge to express a powerful emotion to convey what you're heart is believing and desiring. If we make our feelings the foundational lens through which we look at everything, what if our beliefs and desires are the wrong things? We will end up with a powerful driving force ( feelings) that bypasses all reasoning ( Biblical reasoning) leading you to do what you want to do. That could be dangerous. While feelings aren't the foundation, they can be a natural byproduct of a heart truly engaged with God. If you're making your feelings the only thing you're looking for when you worship, you sure will be disappointed. Whether you realize it or not, there is a temptation to treat Jesus as a sidekick that gives you endless feelings whenever you want them, not the King that rules your soul, your life and everything. As a result of that, you may end up looking for feelings more than Jesus himself, in which case, it has become your idol. As Tim Keller puts it, " Idols cannot bear the freight and the weight of the longings of your soul."[2] 'Feelings' cannot bear the freight of the longings of your soul, only Jesus does.

What do I do now I feel numb?

Just Hang in There

It is hard to hang in there with Jesus when you feel like you have run out of all your emotions. Our Lord understands that. Though it sounds counter-intuitive, the more we feel like running away from Jesus, the more we should run towards Jesus. There is no other way. Instead of making our feelings the foundation for your life, you must be driven by covenant promises. Because, eventually, if you hang in there, God's covenant promises will touch your mind, heart, and will. The key here is you need to hang in there. Remember, the just shall live by faith, not feelings. Let faith be the lens through which you look at everything in the world; including your feelings. Practcally speaking, you may want to continue to read the Bible, pray, attend the church and hang around for fellowship.

Look at Creation through the Lens of Faith

What does it look like to look through the lens of faith when your feelings have all gone dry? Again, taking cues from the Psalmist, we would go to places where you could be alone and enjoy God's presence. For the Psalmist, it is the forest where he keeps his eyes wide open to stare into the starry night and bursts forth into saying, " O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!... when I look at heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? ( Ps. 8:1,3-4)."Or, When Jesus talks about birds of the air, lilies of the field, he is asking his listeners to look at creation through the lens of faith ( Matt 6:30). He wants you to look at the Father's gentle care and his majestic handiwork. We are made to look at God and he reveals himself both in creation and the Bible. The lens through which you look at things will get recaliberated when you meditate upon God's word in the context of creation. The result is you will then see things clearly. Now the blind can see! Can you imagine the joy?

Look at the Cross through the Lens of Faith

The greatest event ever to take place in this universe is the life of Jesus culminating in his cruel death and resurrection. How are we to perceive the death and resurrection of Jesus? Many saw Jesus but they denied him. For example, Isaiah the prophet, nearly six hundred years before the death of Jesus, seeing through the lens of faith, he prophesied, " ...Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted..( Is. 53:4)." What if you had the ability to fly back in time and witness the crucifixion? It is the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, absorbing the wrath of God on your behalf, to save you from eternal punishment, by bearing your sins. Do not gloss over the details. But just hang in there. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you to see God's loving kindness. Let this truth impact your feelings, not the other way around. Don't crave for feelings, but learn to stare at Jesus (Heb. 12:2-3):. May the Lord help you as you persevere in faith through some dry seasons. When you walk through dry seasons, run the race by remembering Jesus is holding onto you and does not reject you because your heart is not warm towards him. In fact, it is by basking in the heat and the light of the gospel of Jesus that your heart will be warmed.

[1]http://www.grandviewlibrary.info/uploads/2/2/7/1/22710236/jimmy_jet_and_his_tv_set.pdf

[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mK65lpveSM&t=2312s