{"id":4313,"date":"2019-04-23T10:57:57","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T17:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=4313"},"modified":"2019-05-08T05:39:43","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T12:39:43","slug":"c-s-lewis-dont-be-fooled-by-feelings-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=4313","title":{"rendered":"C. S. Lewis: Don\u2019t be fooled by feelings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"187\" height=\"270\" src=\"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Lewis-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4314\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>\n<\/p><p><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Should you depend on spiritual feelings or experience?\nRemember C.S. Lewis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAll our prayers are being answered and\nI thank God for it. The only unfavorable symptom is that <strong>you are just a trifle too excited.<\/strong> It is quite right that you\nshould feel that \u2019something terrific\u2019 has happened to you \u2026. Accept these\nsensations with thankfulness as birthday cards from God, but remember that they\nare <strong>only greetings, not the real gift<\/strong>.\nI mean that it is not the sensations that are the real thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The real thing is the gift of the Holy Spirit which can\u2019t\nusually be \u2013 perhaps not ever \u2013 experienced as a sensation or emotion.<\/strong> The sensations are merely the response of your nervous\nsystem. Don\u2019t depend on them. Otherwise when they go and you are once again\nemotionally flat (as you certainly will be quite soon), you might think that\nthe real thing had gone too. But it won\u2019t. <strong>It\nwill be there when you can\u2019t feel it.<\/strong> May even be operative when you can\nfeel it least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t imagine it is all going to be \u2018an\nexciting adventure from now on.\u2019 It won\u2019t. Excitement, of whatever sort, never\nlasts. This is the push to start you off on your first bicycle: you\u2019ll be left\nto lots of dogged pedaling later on. And no need to feel depressed about it either.\nIt will be good for your spiritual leg muscles. So enjoy the push while it\nlasts, but enjoy it as a treat, not as something normal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Letters of C. S. Lewis, ed. W.H. Lewis\n(New York: Hartcourt, 1966) 241: <strong>Letter of May 15, 1952, emphasis added.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Should you depend on spiritual feelings or experience? Remember C.S. Lewis: \u201cAll our prayers are being answered and I thank God for it. The only unfavorable symptom is that you are just a trifle too excited. It is quite right that you should feel that \u2019something terrific\u2019 has happened to you \u2026. Accept these sensations [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4313"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4324,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4313\/revisions\/4324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}