FEELINGS: SHOULD YOU TRUST THEM?

   Feelings are natural responses to how we see things. Should you trust your feelings?

“Feelings provide us with signals for what is going on in the world,” someone said. “When these signals are accurate, we can trust our feelings; when feelings are not proper signals, we cannot trust them.”

What is “intuition”?

Women are said to posses a superior intuition (women’s intuition) — a knack for knowing what others are feeling and thinking, sources say. (Experts say this intuition is based on an ability to read facial expressions and body language. Are women perhaps better at that than men?)

Intuition is feelings-based and is a thing that a person knows or considers likely because they have an instinctive feeling about a situation or a thing.

“A gut-feeling or gut-instinct is an understanding or knowing of a situation without specific data or evidence at the time. … Instinct is an innate, hardwired tendency. For example, humans have biological, hardwired instincts for survival and reproduction. Some folk can feel when something ‘seems off’ or ‘not right.’”  

Eric Bonabeau, writing for Harvard Business Review, says, “Intuition has its place in decision making — you should not ignore your instincts any more than you should ignore your conscience — but anyone who thinks that intuition is a substitute for reason is indulging in a risky delusion.”

Do you go by your feelings about something, or do you trust your thinking? What about trusting God’s thinking?

Ms. Tempe Brown, a Greenville, SC, speaker, says, “We must get out of the realm of just operating within our five senses. The Lord is calling us to come up higher. To have HIS thoughts, so we can be living in greater wisdom, knowledge and understanding. Who doesn't want that? Especially in these last days.”

“Feelings about life can be deceiving. Being wrong feels the same as being right – until you know better. … If you have no basis for what truth is, your entire life will be spent making decisions based on feelings,” says Mrs. “Mary,” a minister’s wife who writes at healthychristianhome.com. “Our feelings cannot be trusted by themselves. In fact, Jeremiah 17:9 says, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?’”

Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” 

“If you don’t have a guidebook for life, how can you know what is true and what is not?” Mrs. Mary asks. “It is much easier to not let your feelings guide you when you trust God and are spending time in His Word, the ultimate truth.”

“Sanctify them by the truth. Your Word is truth” (John 17:17).

The Bible says some people will be terribly deceived.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21-24).

Talk about being deceived! Wow!

The more we read, understand, know, and live out God’s Word, the more we CAN trust our thinking and feelings.

Mrs. Mary suggests that you start a journal.

She says, “This is my favorite way to process and understand my feelings and inform them with truth. For me, sometimes I don’t know what’s bothering me or what lies I’m believing until I write my feelings down. Prayer journaling really helps me see the big picture and what to pray/study about. I always write down my prayers, as if I’m writing a letter to God. Alternatively, you could also write journal entries of your thoughts.”