So many times we can misinterpret our feelings for facts or truth and allow those feelings to determine how we perceive ourselves and/or the situations we are in.
In today's episode, we are going to break down how to assess how we are feeling, or the facts about a situation, in comparison with the truth of God's Word.
When you allow God to be the light of your life and allow His truth to be your guide you can avoid turning an intended 11-day journey into a 40-day journey.
Let's jump right into todays' Truths & Promises.
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Get Caught Up with our Introduction Trailer to Truths & Promises
Catching Feelings: Facts v. Feelings v. Truth - Transcription
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Hey, y'all Hey, you're listening to the first episode of the truths and promises podcast, and I am so excited. I hope that you are too today. We're talking about. Feelings and truth. It's all about how there are, sometimes these facts were presented with that create all types of feelings, but these feelings and these facts oftentimes don't align with the truth.
And so I want to talk about how to stand on the truth and the promises of God when we just feel like. The worst. I have nothing else to say. Other than maybe we feel like trash, maybe we feel like, you know, we're inadequate, or we're feeling overwhelmed or anxious. Maybe we're feeling like failures, maybe we're feeling defeated or oppressed.
There's so much truth in the word of God that we can lean on to. There are so many promises that we can cling to. And so that's what I want to talk about today. And I've gone back and forth about this first episode and what it should be about. And as I started to study for this facts, feelings, and truth, I started to, uh, notice how perfect I think this really is.
So today I'm going to show you what happens when you assess the facts, and let your feelings be your God instead of allowing God to continue to be the light of your life and allowing his truth to continue to be your guide. What happens is the short and dirty version is your 11 day journey turns into 40 years. So that's what we're going to see today.
The exact moment where the Israelites went from an 11 day journey to a 40 year stay in the wilderness. And then we're going to turn to Matthew 4 and we're going to see Jesus as a model of how to fight back against the feelings and the facts that try to arise. Now I'm really hoping that I can make this a short episode, but in the case, in the event that I can't, forgive me in advance, but there is so much truth here that I want to call out.
So please stick with me to the very end. I promise you won't regret. So I kind of want to start this out a little fun since this is the first episode.,and a lot of you probably don't know, or maybe do, I want to share two truths and a lie and I'm gonna be real, I probably shouldn't call this a lie because my momma told me not to, like, we weren't allowed to use that word as children. So maybe I'll call it two truths in a fib, but ya'll know the game. Right? So I'm going to give you two statements. I'm going to give you three facts. Two are going to be truth and one, not so much. Okay. So here we go.
My first facts, ,:
I like to travel. I actually love to travel and I've been to Germany, I've been to Amsterdam, and I've also been to London. I've been to a couple of cities in Germany. And I did this all in a 10 day span.
My second fact is that my friends have affectionately named, , all rose gold, mauve, and dusty rose colors after me. They call it Shekinah color because that's pretty much, almost, all that I wear.
And my last facts would be that. Oh, this is going. Yeah, I love Applebee's. I mean, Applebee's is my go-to even my husband knows that if I'm feeling down or out overwhelmed or sad, like just get your wife some Applebee's and she will like be, oh, okay. I'll probably dance while I'm eating. All those good things.
So those are my three facts and I'll at the end, let you know which one of those is actually not so true.
All right. So to start off, oh, I want to dive in, , we're kind of go to Numbers 13 and Numbers 14. I'm not going to read many of these verses to you. I'm sort of gonna just let you, , read them on your own time and I encourage you to do so, but what I will do.
It's kind of pull out some highlights and I'll let you know what's happening through these passages, but please do go back and read it for yourself. There's so much richness in this 1140 story. So hereit goes, Numbers 13, verse 2 God is speaking to Moses and says, "Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites . Here, we are talking about the promised land, the promised land here is the Canaanite land. All right. This is Canaan , that God has promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all of the Israelites. This is the reason that he pulled them out of bondage and slavery in Egypt so that He could deliver them into this land. Now, when he says that He's delivering them into this land, He's saying that "I am giving you this land." There's very little work that He requires of the Israelites. All He requires of them is their obedience and their faithfulness. Like this is literally all that He asked of them, but He knows that they're not perfect. So we see in Leviticus, all the offerings that they can make to ask for a atonement and forgiveness for their sins.
So he makes all of these things possible. Uh, but at the end of the day, He just wants to give his chosen people His best. So he has this promised land for them, and He says, send them up, send out 12 people, to go, 12 men to go and see this land that I am giving to you. So the 12 guys spend 40 days there and then they were returned from their exploration in verse 25, and in verse 27, we start to see them giving their account. They say to Moses, we went into the land, which you sent us and it does flow with milk, and honey, they're saying to him, it's exactly how God said it would be because God said, I will send your children to a land, your children's children, your children's children, children, to a land that is flowing with milk and honey, and then what's happening.
They're saying there's exactly how God said it would be. It does flow with milk and honey, that thing is nice. Okay. It's it's got a nice spread, everything, but then they say in verse 28, but although it's flowing with milk and honey, the people who live there are powerful and the cities are fortified and very large.
all right. I don't see anything wrong with this. It's a fact. Okay. This can be a real real fact. The land is beautiful, but it's also super fortified. all right, whoop-de-doo so in verse 30, Caleb comes through and he says, yeah. All right, cool. But we should go up and take possession of the land for, we can certainly do it.
Some people might say he was really feelin' himself and he was like, oh, "we're mighty and we're strong, and we could go...". No, this isn't a feeling. This isn't even just a fact, but this is truth. How do we know that this is truth? Because all of the scriptures leading up to this moment, God has continuously said, even as he did in Numbers 13, verse 2, that I am giving this land to the Israelites.
So if he is giving this land to the Israelites, then as Caleb says, they can certainly do it. But the other 10 men, we're all in their feelings. Okay. And maybe start to spread this bad report among the Israelites about the land that they had explored. They then start to tell them, we see in verse 33, they're telling the people, we seem like grasshoppers in our own eyes and we look the same to them.
Can somebody say assume. They were assuming a lot. Okay. They were assuming a lot about what other people were thinking about them. This should seem familiar because unless you're like an amazingly confident person that has no doubts, no fears, no worries, no anxiety, no feelings of inadequacy. Then maybe you won't connect with what I'm saying here.
But for a us other normal people. I think we've all experienced this imposter syndrome. This inadequacy, this, we don't belong here, we're not good enough. Why would God choose me? Why would God use me? That in itself is sort of a whole nother podcast, but at the end of the day, these feelings, were taking over them so much so that we see in Numbers 14, that they start to cry. They raised their voices. They do what the Israelites do best. They start complaining at God. Not, not to God, not talking to God like God, please help us understand what you're doing here. No. You should have left us in Egypt because you just brought us out here to die in the wilderness. Now you brought us to die in the promised land, and I want to go back to bondage and I want to go back to my old sin and I want to go back to my old ways.
They're going through all of these feelings and emotions. Why? Because they've forgotten the truth. So Joshua and Caleb, two out of the 12 men, the only two out of the 12 men, they were our culture settings, okay. Our trendsetters. They were the sojourners. They were the ones that were like, no, we're the visionaries here. We know how this is supposed to go down. And the only reason that they were the two that stood out. Was because they remembered the truth that God had spoken to them. And so they start in verse seven of Numbers 14 to speak life into them and to remind them not to be afraid because the Lord is with them, that He won't leave them. He won't forsake them, that the land that He has, that God has stored up for themis exceedingly and abundantly good. Hello, Ephesians 3:20, that it is flowing with milk and honey, and that He most importantly will give it to them, but the Israelites don't want to listen. So they continue to complain and murmur and they start to sin, and you know what we start to see in Numbers 14 :33 god simply says your children will be shepherds here for 40 years. There's the 40 and 1140. Okay. Suffering for what? Your unfaithfulness. So God gave them 40 years in the wilderness. He said 40 years, one year for each of the 40 days, you explored the land, you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.
Hmm. There's so much I could dive into there, but I'm going to leave that right there, and maybe we can come back in another episode and touch on it. But this right here again is what happens when you assess the facts through your own natural eyes and then let your feelings become your god. When you let go of truth. Remember the Word teaches us that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light. When we let go of Jesus, when we let go of our relationship with him, when we let go of the truth that he's spoken into our lives, and we start to hold onto the facts and the feelings more than we hold on to him and his Word, that's when our 11 day journey becomes a 40 year journey. So if I can say nothing else, do not allow the facts or the feelings to blind you. Do not allow them to distract you from the truth. Hold fast to the truth of the word. Now I want us to go over to Matthew 4 and here I will read a little bit more.
So, right here in Matthew 4 we see that Jesus has been in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. And a quick pause and note here to note what took the Israelites 40 years only took Jesus, 40 days, and. nights. God, that's good. I hope you all can see that he is the ultimate Redeemer. The ultimate Restorer. The ultimate Keeper, and a Way Maker. It's because he did 40 in the wilderness that we can now take an 11 day journey. We don't ever have to do that 40, ever again. We can now accomplish all those things that God has already predestined and set out for us to accomplish. We can walk into the promised land, both our inheritance in heaven, as well as our plan, and purpose here on this earth because of the 40 that he did in the wilderness for us.
It's such a beautiful and a lovely thing. It's his redemption, it's his cycle breaking. It's his keeping. It's his protecting. Like if y'all can see me right now, definitely doing my little shout jump, but let's fast forward. And that was just a little side bar. What we see here is the enemy starts to tempt him. So the tempter came to him in verse three and said to him, "if you are the son of God", okay, it's not a question. It's a fact. He is the Son of God, but that's all right. He says, tell these stones to become bread. All right. We see, Jesus take two fish and five loaves of bread and feed a multitude. We've seen Jesus turn water into wine, like we seen all of these things later on in the scripture, right?
So there is no doubt that if Jesus really wanted to, in that moment, He could have turned that bread or that stone into bread. We know that Jesus is one with God. And if he could make the sun, the moon, the stars, the birds, the sea the, what, if he could create everything that we see. There is no doubt that he could have turned that stone into bread.
So that's a fact he could do that, but Jesus answered him with truth. It is written "Men shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God. So then like, all right, everywhere that come out, the mouth of God. All right. Cool. Cool. So throw herself down. He says, in verse six, he says he will command his angels because it's written, he will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone.
So throw yourself down then Jesus, Satan the tempter. I imagine that's what he sounds like but Jesus answered him and said, I hear that fact that you're throwing out there, but here's the truth. It is also written. Do not put your Lord, put the Lord, your God to the test. So then the devil was like, all right, that didn't work. Let's try one more time. He took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and said, all this, I will give you if you will bow down and worship me. Y'all I don't know if this is a fact or not. I don't know what Satan would have done. I don't even want to take the time to try to imagine it.
But one thing I know is that he was trying to create a feeling here. He was trying to induce a feeling of reverence, of servitude, of worship. But Jesus was like, forget those feelings, a feeling of desire. That's another one. But Jesus was like, forget those feelings. And he said away from me, Satan for it is written worship the Lord, your God, and serve him only.
Jesus is a perfect picture of how to not do 40 years in the wilderness. He's the perfect model of how to fight back against the feelings and the facts that come to take our mind, take our time, take our energy, take our emotions that come to drive us insane. But if there's any truth that I can remind you all to stand on, if the truth, and I won't read all of these, it's the truth that we find in Isaiah 55 and 11, Isaiah 40 and 8, Matthew 5 and 18. 1 Peter 1 and 25, Numbers 23 and 19. It's the truth that says, His word will never fade. It's the truth that says the Lord endures forever. It's the truth that says the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever, it's the truth that says the facts in the feelings may come and go, but the Word of God remains.
It is a sword. It is a rock. It is something that is steady and stable. It's established, and it establishes our ways. If only we lean and depend on the truth. Now the feelings may come. How's that God, what are, what are some of the feelings that I faced from day to day that other people might face from day to day? And how do those relate to the facts? And, well, God started to show me, is this little chart and I'll, I'll try to share this in a blog or show notes or something, but these feelings of inadequacy come because you're not doing what the next person is. So the feeling and inadequacy, the fact you're not doing what the next person is. That's, that's a fact I'm not doing what you are. You're not doing what I am. But the truth of the matter is that the Lord orders your steps. And the next truth of the matter is Philippians 4 and 13 that says we can do all things through Him who gives us strength. You don't have to feel inadequate. You don't have to feel like an imposter. None of us do because the Lord orders our steps and He directs our paths and we can do all things through Him who strengthens us.
Then I start to think about the overwhelm and anxiety that comes. And the fact of the matter is that you might be doing too much. Let's just be real in this culture that we're in. It's go, go, go, side hustle, real job, a little side business, this, that the other. And we've got too much going on. But the truth of the matter is He directs our path and the scripture tells us in Philippians 4 and 6, "do not be anxious for anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Perhaps you struggle with fear because of a bad doctor's report or maybe something a financial advisor told you, or maybe something you're going through in school. I don't know. Fear comes in so many different ways and for so many different factual reasons. But then we can stand on Isaiah 41 and 10, which says, "so do not fear for, I am with you." He was with them.
They had no reason to fear going into the promised land. He had been with them in the wilderness forever. We see at the end of these 40 years that He was with them in the wilderness and their shoes never wore out. Their clothes never wore out. It makes no sense. An entire generation dies off, but they still had everything that they needed, water and manna, and food, everything that they needed.
He is always with us in the promised land, in the wilderness, in confusion, in defeat, in deceit, he's forever with us. That's his only desire is to be with us. He says, do not be dismayed for, I am your God. He says, I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. There's no need to fear.
Sometimes we might feel uncertain or unclear. We might feel like we're lacking or we're missing something. The truth might be. Or I'm sorry, those might be the feelings. And the fact might be that we're lacking time with God. We're not seeking him in all our ways and in everything we do, but that's when the truth comes in from Psalms 37 and 4. And that's when the truth comes in from Proverbs 16 and 3, where it says, "commit to the Lord, whatever you do. And he will establish your plans." Or in Psalm 37 and 4, where it says, "take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart," which is something we should talk about more.
Don't just take that scripture for what it simply says, but there is a deeper meaning there. Then it also talks about, , we talk about feelings of failure and maybe the fact is that you did mess up on one thing or another thing or multiple things. But there is truth and there's truth that says success comes from a Lord in Psalms 75, verse 6 through 7.
There is also truth from Jeremiah 29 and 11, where it says "for, I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." So what can failure mess with, when you already know the truth? When you already know the truth that sits in Jeremiah 29 and 11, or even Ephesians 3 and 20, again, a whole nother podcast.
We'll come back to that one. When you're feeling defeated or oppressed, oh man. The fact is there may be antagonistic people or things or let's be real, systems and structures. And if you know what I study from the point of racism, then you know what I'm getting at there, but there might be these systems, structures, peoples, or things in your life. And that might be the fact, but the truth is Psalms 23, 5 through 6. That's says, "you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." If we learn to dwell in the house of the Lord, if we learn to dwell in his peace, then we don't have to be bothered by the facts or the feelings that come to exalt themselves.
We will know how to pull them down and tear them down. Oh my God. Because according to 2 Corinthians 10 and 5, it says we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, we take captive. Every thought and make it obedient to Christ, who is Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Light.
Yeah. And then there are the feelings, and this is a hard, one that God is not with us. That he's left us in somehow forsaken us. The fact there, might be that you simply need patience because things don't look how you thought that they would or how you thought that they should look. Ahh, but the truth is his Word never returns to Him void and it lasts forever.
My God. There are facts. There are feelings. And then above all else, there is truth. Which one will you allow to be your God? Which one will you allow to guide you? Two of them, the facts and the feelings may take you on a 40 year journey. One of them, the minority of the three, the truth. That's the one that allows you to accept the 40 days and 40 nights that Jesus did for you in the wilderness that he did for us in the wilderness.
That's what allows you to accept His cycle breaking power, the power that breaks generational curses. The truth is what allows you to accept His love and His grace, His restoration and His redemption, that none of us deserve, but that he so freely gives.
There are facts. There are feelings there's truth. Which one will you allow to be your god?
That's all I have for today, y'all. And for this episode, I do want to tell you the truth about the three facts that I shared with you in the very beginning. And it was the last fact that wasn't so truthful. I don't love Applebee's but I do love cheesecake. So everything I said, just replace Applebee's with cheesecake and there you go. You got it. Cheesecake Factory is my 100% go to. Makes me happy any day of the week. Anytime doesn't matter. What the facts or feelings are the truth is I love cheesecake. All right. Y'all thanks so much for tuning in. I hope this episode blessed you. I will try to keep the next one a little bit shorter, but there's just so much to unpack here.
So let me know your thoughts. Follow up on the show notes or the blog from this episode. And let me know what you think. Let me know if this blessed you in any way, because I pray that it did. All right, have a good one. And I will see y'all lovely people later.
As always, I am so happy that y'all could take a listen to the Truths and Promises podcast today. If you want to connect with me or 1140Glory, just go on over to 1140Glory.com and there you can find the show notes under our blog section, sign up for our email list, or join our online Facebook community. If this has blessed you in any way, or if you have topics that you would like to hear covered here on the podcast, then let us know in the comments of our blog.
And please don't forget to share this with a friend or a family member so that it can bless their life as well.
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