The Celestial Perpetual Motion Machine

I really like what Th. said at the end of his post today: "Faith is work. Work is power.". I find it interesting that when I am feeling most depressed and discouraged, I just don't want to move. I want to crawl into a hole somewhere and cease from any sort of action whatsoever. But, life requires action and movement.

At my last appointment with my counselor, we were talking about decision making. I am supposed to be coming up with a new life map, since my old one isn't really working any more. He pointed out that too often we base our decisions solely on our feelings, and that this is actually Satan's plan. That surprised me, since I thought I was supposed to worry about whether something "feels right" or not. But, he pointed out, there is a difference between feeling "right" and feeling "good". Not everything that is right for me will feel good, and not everything that feels good is right. What I need to do is to figure out what my core principles and priorities are. Then, the decision to decide whether something is right for me or not can be based on whether or not it adheres to those principles. I'm still deciding how I feel about these ideas. But I do know that the promptings of the Holy Ghost can be subtle and difficult to discern. And God has told us that we should study things not only with our hearts, but with our minds as well. Feelings can be transitory and deceptive. Like any good cognitive therapist will tell you, critical evaluation of our feelings is an essential skill to cultivate. When looking at a PhD program, I may feel incompetent or inadequate, but a critical evaluation can point out the fact that, though certain areas of my preparation are weaker than others, I'm not completely incompetent. In this case, following my feelings of doubt will not lead me to the path I need to follow.

My counselor also pointed out that, too often, basing our decisions on our feelings leads only to inaction. We wait until we feel competent or happy to make any sort of movement, and if we are not feeling good, we hang back and wait for a better day. Instead, if we have made a decision, we should take a step into the darkness. A leap of faith, if that's what you want to call it. For some reason, this really resonated with me. Especially because right after my counseling session I attended the temple. The temple endowment ceremony is a journey. In most temples these days it is not a literal one, but in some you still actually move from room to room as you come closer to God. I will admit that some times when I attend the temple are more spiritually profound than others, but this time, I felt a strong sense of peace and strength, and it came at a moment when I was literally moving into a space that symbolizes the presence of God. I realized that I do need to keep moving, because faith will generate its own power. Power to keep going and to keep having faith. I don't know with one-hundred-percent certainty what will happen next week or next year; I do know that the small steps of faith I have been taking are generating more spiritual power, and that's enough to keep me going a little longer.