Emotionaly, what is felt love?

[Ian Gentles]

We often seek to feel love, in fellowship, or from God Himself. However i doubt we really know what we seek. What is it really, to feel God's love, or the love of others in a spiritual sense? Course we didn't all come from the same mold we differ in character, in our felt needs, but spiritually we all yearn for something of love, what is it, how is it known, felt?
Some would say, and i cant disagree entirely, that we seek the safe comforting place, as in womb, a place where we are totally, as our selfs, accepted and sustained. We seek comfort, assurance of love. What is the Wesleyan understanding of this need?

[James Diggs]

I don’t know if this is a theological question from a Wesleyan or any other theological tradition? The question of how we feel as human beings seems to be a more of a human science type question. I think our Wesleyan tradition might inform us on how theology relates to how humans feel emotions like love that we learn from the human sciences, but I am not sure theology can comment on the “how we feel love” beyond that.

Did I misunderstand, are you asking something else?

[Anne and Dwayne Hood]

Ian, long ago, I walked into a little country church-when they did not lock the doors, and a great feeling of warmth, wrapped around me. I had never stepped foot in that church before. That was love.
Later, I ask Dwayne, if he could be just as happy, in that church, as in one in town. He could. In years past, his dad had pastored both of them.
At that time, I felt a load of heaviness, when we left the other church. The pastor was having emotional problems. I was not old enough, at that time, to stay there, and help carry the load. I had not joined, but Dwayne had been a member there years before. This was soon after he got out of the USAF, and both churches were new to me.
We can, also, feel the love of people. Just think, Ian, of times that you have felt that, and try to remember how it felt. There are times, that you are able to draw strength from others. This may seem strange to some, but, I have actually felt strength flowing from Dwayne to me, (like, into my chest from his) when I badly need it.
There are times, that you love a church member, or family, when your companion is the pastor there. While, not meaning to be partial, it is very hard to not love some people more, when they seem to show how much they love us. There, are also times, that we are the ones that have to extend the love. It might not be our favorite people to be with, but, in extending our love to them, we grow to love them, very much. It is a thrill when we witness their growing in Christ and love, that they begin to be instruments through which God can extend His love.

[Bill Evans]

It is a challenge to try and empirically define an existential sort of experience. Is such love intuitive? Is it something that we cognitively understand based on the promises of Scripture? Is it something that is behaviorally demonstrated that creates that "warm fuzzy" feeling?

[Bob Evans]

I think love is an undefinable misture of feeling charactor,and committment. To deemphisize the feeling makes it a business contract. To deemphisize committtment makes it something in the heat of the monent. You can't have one without the others.

[Gina Stevenson]

I think love is an undefinable misture of feeling charactor,and committment. To deemphisize the feeling makes it a business contract. To deemphisize committtment makes it something in the heat of the monent. You can't have one without the others.

Good statement, but I got tickled at the last sentence, as I was nearly singing it by the time I got to the end of it:

"Love & marriage, love & marriage,
Go together like a horse & carriage.
et cetera .............
You can't have one with the other." ;)

[Ian Gentles]

I just hear people say, they feel God's love and presence with them, or on other occasions telling of experiances where they felt God's love em brassing them, or even overshadowing them. I just wondered what they mean by this? and if we have theological grounds to expect, hope for, such experiences of the Divine mercy and love. I know from Sanders book, "The God who Risks" God is a relational God, and His being love, surely we should expect to experiance this in the relational?

[Tami Martin]

I had a thought in my head from your first post, Ian, but changed it completely with this last one.

It does NOT matter if I FEEL God's love like a pair of arms around me giving me a squeeze. It does not matter if I get a warm fuzzy thinking about God or going in to a particular building.

Because God is not defined by my feelings. Feelings are so subjective from person to person and from moment to moment within one person. What I rely on - my faith that says NO MATTER WHAT I FEEL, God loves me. He sent His Son to die for me. He sends His Spirit to help me grow and equip me for all good work. Out of that knowing, occasionally, when I let all the other minutia of life go, I can feel that love.

I thank God that my faith and my experience do not depend on what I feel.

Jer. 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

[Ian Gentles]

I am not sure such events would depend on our emotions, this was not my thinking. I was thinking more of God's felt presence being experienced.

[Tami Martin]

Wouldn't that be utterly subjective then?

[Ian Gentles]

No, i dont think it would. If God touches people with His love it has to be a felt thing, though not of their emotions, though theirs would come into play!

[Barbara Moulton]

No, i dont think it would. If God touches people with His love it has to be a felt thing, though not of their emotions, though theirs would come into play!

I know God loves me. I see evidence of His love in my life.

Sometimes I have a strong sense of His presence and peace. In my heart I "feel" that reflected in a sense of comfort and warmth. Since God is love, the feelings I have when I sense His presence could be the "feeling of love".

But in truth, I just don't analyze it too much. I'm content knowing that God loves me. The times when I feel His presence more are just a great bonus in my Christian journey. I am grateful when "feeling moments" happen but not bereft if they don't.

[Tami Martin]

No, i dont think it would. If God touches people with His love it has to be a felt thing, though not of their emotions, though theirs would come into play!

So you're saying that God has a generic "touch" that those who receive it all feel in the same way?

[Ian Gentles]

Yes Tami i do, or at least wonder? I mean, if God wants to touch us with His love, surely it wont be just our emotions?

[Laurie Florence]

A few years ago, I was very down, and I felt like God seemed very far away. I couldn't really feel His love, and was kind of unsure of it. Then I was reading the psalms one day and Psalm 42 really spoke to my heart. Maybe reading it can bless your heart too.

[Tami Martin]

Yes Tami i do, or at least wonder? I mean, if God wants to touch us with His love, surely it wont be just our emotions?

I just don't agree. I don't think God has to "touch" me in exactly the same way that He "touches" anyone else. It has been my own personal experience that it's not the same.

[Bob Evans]

Ian

Now I get your purpose. I think anytime we are able to do something we could't naturally do its an expression of his love in your life. When we turn the other cheek, when we face difficult situations with courage, when we hold our tounge when 3 years ago we would have said hurtful things, when were down in the pits of discoragement and find the inner stuff to get going again we are doing so in the power of his love in our lives.

Just as my other answer about love I think awareness of his love is an inmeasruable combination of feelings and facts. You can't have one without the other.

[Bill Evans]

I am wondering if an answer to the question can be found in the exploration of a metaphor. How do I experience the love of my wife? Do I feel that in a similar manner to the way that I experience God's love? I recognize that all metaphors have their limitations, but I wonder if this is one worth exploring.

[Barbara Moulton]

I am wondering if an answer to the question can be found in the exploration of a metaphor. How do I experience the love of my wife? Do I feel that in a similar manner to the way that I experience God's love? I recognize that all metaphors have their limitations, but I wonder if this is one worth exploring.

I think there is great value in this metaphor.

The majority of my life with my husband has been about simply living with the reality of his love (and he with the reality of my love). No great bells and whistles...just a love that supports me in everything I do.

Sometimes we both feel that love more. When he looks across the room at me and spontaneously smiles, I bask in a sense of his love. When he calls me at work and tosses an "I love you" at the end of the phone call, I am simply reminded of his love.

When we have gone through crises, and he has put his arms around me and told me that it was going to be ok, I felt protected.

If we have a romantic dinner, and hold hands across the table, I "fall in love" all over again.

The love my husband and I share comes in a variety of expressions and feelings.

In a very real way, I think that is the way it is with God. Most of the time, I simply live my life, firmly grounded on the knowledge of the love He has for me.

There are times when I become aware of and/or am nurtured by that love in a different way.

But its all love.

[Ian Gentles]

I suppose question could be, How do we know God. At least with wives, we know them in their humane existence in relation to ourself. So the word, touch, are felt. The smile is seen, the tears we notice, we know what they look like. In regards to God we have none of these things, in fact theology is still trying to explain Him! Is He the sovereign God of Calvinism, or the God of Open Theism? We seem to spend our time trying to work out God! Its hard to have a relationship with such Being, One whom we cant work out! God is love, this is what He tells us, so does He make that love felt. Isnt it hard to know God's love when we have problems knowing God? Relational to me seems to say, we will know, we will be touched by the other. If we use metaphors, it can be a child with a Father, but a Father who often dosent seem to be around for the child. Dont fathers nurture their children with felt love? Surely the big need for humane existance is love in the relational, we cant exist without it! So what happens with God? I call Him "Father" but what does this actually mean, He is also a "Judge" we have dealings with. So how does He communicate love to us in the now relational?

[Hans Deventer]

I suppose question could be, How do we know God. At least with wives, we know them in their humane existence in relation to ourself. So the word, touch, are felt. The smile is seen, the tears we notice, we know what they look like. In regards to God we have none of these things, in fact theology is still trying to explain Him! Is He the sovereign God of Calvinism, or the God of Open Theism? We seem to spend our time trying to work out God! Its hard to have a relationship with such Being, One whom we cant work out! God is love, this is what He tells us, so does He make that love felt. Isnt it hard to know God's love when we have problems knowing God? Relational to me seems to say, we will know, we will be touched by the other. If we use metaphors, it can be a child with a Father, but a Father who often dosent seem to be around for the child. Dont fathers nurture their children with felt love? Surely the big need for humane existance is love in the relational, we cant exist without it! So what happens with God? I call Him "Father" but what does this actually mean, He is also a "Judge" we have dealings with. So how does He communicate love to us in the now relational?

Ian, the Father sent Jesus to be God's love in the flesh. Something we celebrate around this time of the year :basic03

Then Jesus told us: "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." Seems He had in mind that the love of God should become enfleshed in us too.

[Ian Gentles]

Ian, the Father sent Jesus to be God's love in the flesh. Something we celebrate around this time of the year :basic03

Then Jesus told us: "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." Seems He had in mind that the love of God should become enfleshed in us too.

Yes, but Jesus is God, and in history, if i can put it that way!? Jesus reveals the Father, but He did it in time, in history! To know Jesus then, and to know Him now are entirely different things. Then, we could talk, witness, see, now we cant!
Yes, we are to be love to each other, and the world, I agree!

[Ian Gentles]

I beleive some need a felt touch, spiritualy, from God more than others do. Why we differ from one another in this i do not know, but it seems some need more assurance than others. Some accept the gospel and for them thats it, while others go on a search for God emotionaly. The emotional is a very big part of us, a part that needs fullfilment, a part that hungers for its felt needs to be met. I may be accepted in God, but like many i still want to be overshadowed by His great presence and love, to feel it in my inner most being. I expect there are many similer out there?

[Hans Deventer]

Yes, but Jesus is God, and in history, if i can put it that way!? Jesus reveals the Father, but He did it in time, in history!

Yes, exactly.

To know Jesus then, and to know Him now are entirely different things. Then, we could talk, witness, see, now we cant!

Well, that is my very point. Can't we? If we are sent as Jesus was sent, if we are to be to each other as Jesus was to us, isn't God in that? Can't I see His hand in the hand of the one who loves me in His name? Feel His touch through him/her?

We lost our brother Brad. Haven't you seen God's presence in him? I have! Even further, have you yourself not been God's touch, God's presence to many people you ministered to?

And more, how can we "feel" God? Surely this in some way is processed by our senses, right? Be it physical or spiritual. But you know and I know that our senses can be pretty messed up.
I've known people who had a huge problem with that, even one that lost his faith because he never experienced God. Now there may be many reasons for that but the above could be one. Question remains, in this broken world, are we to expect this "direct" touch from God? Sometimes we may receive it, but most of the time, for most of us, my guess is that it is through others that God's love reaches us.

If I had to live by God's direct touch, I'd have a real hard time. But thank God, He has sent people who show something of Him in loving me.

If for some reason, we end up in an isolated cell with no human company or contact, yes, then we'd really need Him to touch us. But thankfully, most aren't in that situation. And all of us are called to, like Jesus, represent God to people and reach out with compassion.

[Ian Gentles]

I think the felt presence of God is more important to the Christian than miracles are. I think its that felt certainty that, at this moment,God loves and cares for us. We talk of assurance, surely this is a felt think? In which ways therefore is it felt, surely by God's Spirit witnessing to our spirit that we are a child of God, a felt thing!?

[Barbara Moulton]

I beleive some need a felt touch, spiritualy, from God more than others do. Why we differ from one another in this i do not know, but it seems some need more assurance than others.

I think this is because we truly are individuals. We are all shaped by different experiences throughout our life.

Some people have parents who didn't show love. Some have been deeply hurt by someone that they entrusted themselves too. Some have been abused by people who claimed to love them. Some have emotional issues which makes it hard for them to form and keep attachments.

All these things mean that some need greater assurance from those with whom they are in a relationship. They need to hear words of love more often...and even then they might doubt.

These same dymanics enter into our relationship with God I believe. We are shaped by our human relationships and might spend our entire Christian life rarely "feeling" the love of God.

My dad has blind all his life. I think that when he dies, one of the most glorious things will be for him to see all the glories of what God has prepared. Similiarly, those who have been wounded and suffer from an emotinal disability as a result, I like to think that they will experience even greater joy in Heaven...when they can finally bask in the complete and utter knowledge that they are deeply loved.

And in the meantime, just as I feel God will commend my father for all that He accomplished for the Kingdom DESPITE his disabilty, so I believe God will commend those who struggle all their lives with really feeling the assurance that they are loved...yet who live by faith.

[Ian Gentles]

I feel for those living in a spiritually emotional empty place, and its seems wrong if God gives one assurance and not the other. Would be awful if in a family one child was enabled to feel love while another wasn't!

[Hans Deventer]

In which ways therefore is it felt, surely by God's Spirit witnessing to our spirit that we are a child of God, a felt thing!?

Good question! What is the Witness of the Spirit? Wesley wrote two sermons on that topic!
But is it felt? Right now, I don't feel anything special, but I KNOW I am a child of God. Sometimes, one feels it and that is wonderful. But most of the time, it's a knowing, a purely mental thing. As I know Hannie loves me. I'm not glowing from that love all day long. The butterflies usually don't last forever. But instead there grows a deep trust, awareness, that does make you smile when you think of it. And surely, sometimes, it is even more! :basic03

I guess it's the same with God. I know I'm His child. That isn't something that makes me glow all day long, but when I realise it, it makes me smile. Much like realising our loss this moment makes me cry. I'm not crying all day long, but when I read certain messages on NazNet, the tears start to flow.

[Ian Gentles]

A parent will do all they can to lift up the child that is down in their loving care. Surely God is no different, surely He see's, and in love, goes to aid of one that is down. Sure relationships arent always a walking in the "glow", but neither are they lonliness of soul.

[Hans Deventer]

A parent will do all they can to lift up the child that is down in their loving care. Surely God is no different, surely He see's, and in love, goes to aid of one that is down. Sure relationships arent always a walking in the "glow", but neither are they lonliness of soul.

Unless that loneliness is a disease, Ian. And trust me, even within marriages, there is a lot of loneliness.

[Ian Gentles]

Unless that loneliness is a disease, Ian. And trust me, even within marriages, there is a lot of loneliness.

Yes, it can be a disease I think, but not sure? My thinking is, we need a touch of love, even if loneliness is a disease of some sort. I am not saying we shouldent have emotional problems, but then I am never sure we should either? Surely God desires us to have spiritual and emotional wholeness?

[Ian Gentles]

I must confess to being greatly cast down in soul.
In many ways, its true, last years have just been a nightmare of bad luck, best phrase i could think off, as one thing after another, after another, has hit us. Course in my case this defiantly led to severe depression. Some days I just wished for the Lord to come so I can go home. Other days i simply just wondered about my own salvation.
In all this i also share with others in tragedy, such as dear Brads death.
I find myself down, are there miracles anymore? Is there answered prayer? Is there a felt experience of God's love? I find it hard when answer, as it seems to my emotions, to almost always be "no".
I do look for a new Christianity feeling old one has failed me. Oh, not a changing of beliefs or perspectives, more a change of the me!
Being childish I look for evidence of God's presence with us, and get dismayed that we aren't the church of the New Testament, that everything now seems to be cerebral in our faiths, well in mine!
So in all this, baby like, I yearn for Father in a felt spiritual way.

[Hans Deventer]

Surely God desires us to have spiritual and emotional wholeness?

Surely not all diseases are healed in this life? Surely we live in a broken world? Surely mental diseases will affect "spiritual and emotional wholeness"?
It's like saying, God wants us to run a marathon, while having a broken leg. We may be able to finish it in a wheelchair, but running seems unlikely.

"my power is made perfect in weakness". What does that mean?

[Ian Gentles]

Well Hans, it will mean different things to different people is my take on it. It means God supplies what individuals need, but every individual will be different! Knew an old saint called Alec, spent long years in a large hospital ward chrippled by arthritis, his wife had died in a mental hospital. Well that guy beamed joy, but He was Alec! What i am saying is others wont have that spiritual strength, that we all need according to our individual needs, and we need Father to meet them individually, as an earthly father would with his differing children!

[Ian Gentles]

Reading Brad's article i feel I may be nearer to his position than many thing. Only in love, God's love, can we be fulfilled. Maybe i am not getting it, but isn't this what i have been saying, to feel, totally experience's, God's love, His touch upon our very innermost beings is everything?

[Ian Gentles]

"Medicating" our spirituality. A subject Brads article ventured on , and a good one! OK can see where we are going regards peoples medicating, their spiritual pain, with alcohol etc. But can we do same with normal medication, thus numbing the pains of hurting hearts/souls? Are we best to approach God at our rawest? Dosent doctrine of ES talk about crisis? What is it spiritual/emotional, often both mean the same, crisis?
In saying all this i am aware from history that seeking ES caused psychological problems for folks, well in old sinless perfectionist days.

[Anne and Dwayne Hood]

My power is made perfect in weakness. Would that be because His power in us enables us to do, more than our weakness would be able to do.? So, any perfectness that shows through us, really goes to His glory.

[Ian Gentles]

May my weakness glorify Him, always!!