maggie getz

Back in January, I wrote about my word of the year and why I chose "steadfast."

steadfast (adj.)

(1) Firmly fixed in place: immovable.

(2) Firm in belief, determination, or adherence: loyal.

"I pray God cultivates steadfastness in me like His son, Jesus. This year, I pray my faith is resolutely firm. I want to be devoted to God no matter the situation or season. His love for us is unwavering—I want that kind of love for Him in return. I know I am prone to worry and anxiety. I like to be in control. But God, I give that to You.

Lord, help me to stand firm in the faith. Guard me against sin and temptation and keep me focused on you. Give me steadfastness. Endurance for the fight and total surrender to the King.

That's the life I want to live in 2018: steadfast and true."

Here we are, 7 months later, and I need that steadfastness in my life.

I have felt my emotions running the gamut these past few weeks. Anger, frustration, impatience, irritability. I have felt like a hormonal teenager all the time, getting annoyed by the slightest things and allowing a cloud of negativity to hang over my usual sunny self.

Charles and I recently moved, and I find myself rooting my emotions in the state of boxes in our apartment. When our home feels disheveled, so do I. I let my emotions carry me away, rather than anchoring myself in the Father above and the truth I know in Him.

God loves feelings. Jesus Himself experienced the depth of feelings while here on this earth. He knows deep joy and love, grief, anxiety, and empathy like no one else. He understands feelings because He is the One who created them.

So my feelings are not a bad thing. My feelings are not a problem in the eyes of God. Instead, my feelings are meant to show me more of Him. When I am upset about a messy apartment or frustrated that I can't do things exactly my way, what does that say about my heart?

I think about Joseph in the book of Genesis. Joseph, whom God loved, was put through situation after situation in which his faith was tested. Yet he never wavered. He followed God, and he credited all to God's righteousness. Joseph was thrown into a pit by his brothers and left to die. Then his brothers changed their minds and sold him as a slave to men passing by. Why let him die when they could prosper off his pain?

Joseph ends up serving Potiphar. Potiphar’s wife demands the young and attractive Joseph have an affair with her. He denies her, and Joseph ends up thrown in prison, hated by both Potiphar and his wife.

God still follows him.

“But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keepers of the prison… And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.”

— Genesis 39

He's respected and given more responsibility than the other prisoners. He helps the chief cupbearer get out of prison—and the cupbearer forgets about Joseph. Two. Whole. Years. Pass.

Finally, the cupbearer remembers Joseph. He gets him out of prison by telling Pharaoh he could interpret his dreams. Joseph explains how Egypt will have 7 years of abundance followed by 7 years of famine, and he helps Egypt prepare for this impending famine. So Pharoah uses Joseph and exalts him to the highest position in his kingdom.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

— 1 Corinthians 15:58

Throughout his entire story—which spans years—we never see Joseph lose his cool. We don't see him freak out in the prison or complain to God.

In fact, Joseph is the complete opposite. He is steady, he is faithful, he is true.

God is with him in all that he does. Joseph reflects the steadfastness of God, and he’s a symbol of the Messiah to come. He shows what it truly looks like to have unwavering faith that isn’t disturbed by feelings or situation. His example encourages me in this season where my belief falters. From the pit to the prison to the riches in the house of Pharaoh, Joseph walks with God.

What would it look like for us to walk with God, regardless of circumstance? What if we remembered God walks with us even when we don’t feel His presence? I think our lives would look quite different. Our feelings would become more steady. And our emotions would serve as a way to point us to God, not detract us from Him.

“Lord, give me steadfastness like Joseph, like the Father, like Jesus. Keep me steady, peaceful, grateful. Help me walk with You in every situation and season. I pray all these things in Your name. Amen.”

If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life.

And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.

Truly, He makes beautiful things.

I’m a deep feeler. I am sensitive. I am empathetic. I am conscientious. I feel things to my very core, and it can be very hard for me to simply brush things off. Although I don’t enjoy conflict, I do definitely place a high value on talking about feelings and allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Authentic. Transparent.

Those are such buzz words nowadays, and I’m on board. I am all for living an authentic life. Living a life full of confidence and conviction.

But what I don’t want to do is leave Jesus in the dust while I’m over here supposedly living my best life based on how I feel.

God gave us our emotions. God gave us our feelings, and He gave us them specifically for specific purposes. Sometimes that purpose is so we demonstrate mercy and grace, or so we share humility with others. And sometimes, those feelings show us our dire need for a Savior—our utter lostness without the anchor of Christ.

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

— Hebrews 6:19

I repeated those words in Hebrews to myself two weeks ago as I sat on the bathroom floor, hunched over the toilet, clutching the white porcelain and certain I would lose my marbles at any moment. I told myself that verse over and over again. I told myself that I could trust God.

You see, I absolutely hate throwing up. I mean, no one enjoys it, but I hate it. I get panicky when I feel nauseated, and typically when I am sick with some sort of digestive problem, I cry.

So in that moment, on the cold bathroom floor at 2 a.m., I cried out to God. I asked him to take away the pain. I asked him to heal me. And I finally relaxed enough to realize my body is going to do what it needs to do. If I needed to get sick, then that would be okay. I would be okay. God is still good.

After a good almost two hours of intense nausea like that, still nothing had happened. I crawled back to bed and eventually fell asleep. The next two days, I rested; I then went back to work and all seemed to be well.

Except eight days later, the same situation happened again.

I felt ready this time. I was somewhat scared but ready. I could do this. I would be okay.

And again, nothing.

I felt this intense pain, discomfort, and uneasiness. I spent half of the night awake on the bathroom floor trying to understand what was going on.

While I have a doctor’s appointment soon and am hopeful for some answers (Is it dairy? Is it gluten? Is it this new medication?), the fact of the matter remains: I don’t understand. I don’t understand, and I feel pretty darn crappy. These gastrointestinal issues have left me feeling fearful and in pain. I have even felt lonely and sad.

Why am I telling you about my GI issues in detail?

Because these uncomfortable moments and negative feelings have shown me my need to be totally reliant on Christ.

I cannot do this life alone. I cannot control everything, and I cannot base my faith on my feelings. There will be countless times in this life when I don’t feel well. Whether that’s due to an illness or medication, or because of a broken heart, loss, or longing, we will continue to not feel well in this lifetime.

If you do a Google search for “core feelings,” “basic emotions,” or something along those lines, you’ll find a few variations of the list developed by psychologists. The psych major in me loves this stuff, and I think this list of nine core feelings really gets to the heart:

Anger

Fear

Pain

Loneliness

Love

Passion

Joy

Guilt

Shame

These are feelings we will experience on a regular basis, even daily. Not might but will.

Not only do I feel physical pain and emotional fear from GI issues, but I feel some loneliness because I’m in a long-distance relationship. I also feel love and passion from that relationship. At the same time, I feel guilt and shame when I indulge in sin, when I turn away from God.

“We trust God because feelings are real, but they’re not reliable. He is unchanging. God sees you. God knows you. He’s calling out to you. God is who He says He is. What He says about you is true. He alone is reliable and able to rescue us. He is unchanging, and He is our deliverer.”

— Mason King, The Village Church

Frustration, sadness, embarrassment, regret, isolation—all feelings we’ll encounter on earth as humans.

Feelings cannot carry us through the struggles. Only faith can do that.

We serve a God who has felt every feeling as He walked this earth, fully man and fully God. Jesus was tempted in every way and yet sinless. He is perfect. Because of this, we know we can run to Him when we are tempted and when we feel these negative emotions.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. ”

— Hebrews 4:15

God is super specific in His Word about who we are. He gave us an identity, and we can stand in that truth even when we don’t feel like it. Even when we don’t feel as though as have an identity, or when we feel like the ways in which we define ourselves are crumbling. Because that's the thing:

If we place our true selves in our always feeling happy, then we will always come up empty.

We’ll be looking for our job, relationships, bank accounts, homes, and bodies to satisfy us. Except they never will.

Like impure dross being transformed into gold, we are going to be refined by fire. I expect that fire will come with difficult emotions.

Read through 1 Peter 1; you’ll see what I mean.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable,undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials so that the proven character of your faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

— 1 Peter 1:1-9

We will be tested. We won’t always feel good about that. But let us still rejoice! God gave us feelings. And they’re not all bad feelings. He gave us hope, peace, compassion, humility, love. He gave us all these feelings through His son, Jesus, and asked us to walk by faith.

I have to walk by faith even when I don’t feel like it. It’s the only way. Believe me, a lot of the times I just don’t feel like it! Living a life without God is easier. But I have a living hope and an assurance of salvation through faith in Christ alone. We are all offered that. When we cast our burdens onto God—no matter how big or how small—He will carry us through. Our feelings cannot dictate our faith. But when we walk by faith and ask for a spirit of rejoicing, the feelings will follow.

If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life.

And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.

Truly, He makes beautiful things.