C. S. Lewis once wrote ‘faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.’
I know all about moods; some would say that the definition of being a woman is being moody! But all of us experience different moods: joy, elation, apprehension, fear, anxiety, indecision, terror, misery, boredom, bewilderment, confusion, to name just a few. A mood is a ‘temporary state of mind or feeling’, but at the time, there doesn’t seem to be anything very temporary about it!
My mother always used to say that moods needed to be ‘kicked into touch’, and the older I get, the more I see the wisdom of those words. C. S. Lewis went on to say ‘moods will change, whatever view your reason takes… Unless you teach your moods “where they get off”, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith.’ (‘Mere Christianity’)
James says something similar: ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.‘ (James 1:5-8).
Training the habit of faith is not easy. It requires determination and conscious choice: we determine and speak to ourselves that we will believe and praise, whatever the mood (see Ps 34:1-3, Ps 27:8, Ps 42:5-6). As Eugene Peterson remarks, the command to ‘lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord’ (Ps 134:2) involves a simple motor movement: ‘you may not be ab le to command your heart, but you can command your arms. Lift your arms in blessing; just maybe your heart will get the message and be lifted up also in praise.’ (‘The Journey’, P 176) Today, whatever our moods, we can, by faith, bless the Lord; it’s surprising how feelings follow faith and action, rather than preceding them!