I know that feelings are powerful. And there are times when our feelings can teach us important things. We just need to “let it out” sometimes (in appropriate ways, of course).

But there are times when we need to act above our feelings.

Stuart Holden recalls a story about two soldiers. One was a Christian, the other wasn’t. They were in Malta and the Christian was having a hard time at the hands of the other.

One night they came in soaked after sentry duty. The believer got down on his knees to pray. The other man, annoyed as always, took his mud-covered boots and threw them at him, hitting him square in the head! The pray-er kept praying, and the angry man went to sleep.

In the morning, the man’s boots were cleaned and polished at his bedside. Clearly, the man he had hit had done this kindness after he had finished praying, and even though he probably felt like doing something much different!

That moment was a turning point. That very day the transgressor says he was “brought to repentance.”*

It’s a powerful example of someone living out Romans 12:21, and God using it to save someone’s life: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

I’m not saying you should suffer abuse or an abuser. That’s not my intent. I’m inviting us to act deliberately faithfully, to look to God for direction instead of just having a thoughtless reaction.

Act above your feelings. You never know how God is going to use your faithfulness to change a life.

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Notes:

—Video. I recently started a teaching series through the Gospel of John, arguably one of the most influential documents ever written. Click here for a short video intro I made which explains the who, what and why of the book.

–Bible quotes are from the NIV.

–*As recalled in a sermon by Ken Pell, A Fruit-Full Marriage: Gentleness (Gentle Love), 9/4/2011, and posted at sermoncentral.com and posted on May 9, 2012.