Suppose after fifteen minutes in the Word and prayer, you feel you haven’t gotten anything. Should you persist, or by faith consider you have gotten something?

Learn to live not according to your feeling. Of course, your normal feelings help, but if you have a high fever, you may feel it is warm when it is not. If you want to be spiritual, do not behave according to your feeling. Do not let circumstances determine how you feel. In the spiritual life learn to drop your feeling and go according to the facts.

It is a fact that you need to read the Word. Many young Christians get excited when they first start studying the Bible. They want to prolong the time and come back the next day for more because it is so much fun. Such excitement is short-lived. After a week or so, it fizzles out. If you feel excited when you first start getting into the Word and feel there is light shining, don’t have regard for that feeling. Prepare for a cold day soon to come! It is your duty to spend time in the Word and in prayer. Your day-to-day feeling about it makes no difference. Just fulfill your duty; go by the fact that you need to do these two things.

Don’t think you are wasting your time. A sister once asked Brother Nee if there was any point in her continuing to read the Bible every day; she could never remember what she had read. Brother Nee reminded her of how they washed the rice there in southern China. They would put the rice into a basket made of willow branches and then repeatedly immerse the whole basket in the water. The water would never stay in the basket, however many times it was immersed. Brother Nee pointed out to her that nonetheless the rice and the basket were both getting washed. By continuing to read the Word, this sister would be getting washed even though she couldn’t remember what she had read.

Another fact is that you need to pray regularly. You may soon find that your time of prayer is dry and lifeless. Don’t persuade yourself that this legality is killing you and you should drop it. This would be going by your feeling rather than the fact. The truth of the matter is that having wonderful times in prayer can lead to deception. I can give you two examples.

One day while a sister was praying, she thought the Lord told her He would come back at a certain time. It made her neglect her daily duties to get ready for His return. A number of times saints have been deceived in this way.

Once while a brother was praying, he received a “revelation” that he was no more in the flesh. Alas, not only was his flesh still with him; it was stronger than ever. He made many blunders as a result of this wrong feeling and eventually ended up in fornication.

Let me warn you to beware of excitement when you contact the Lord. Don’t go the way of feelings. Whether you feel high or low, just come to contact your Lord for ten minutes every morning. Do not allow yourself to be played upon, directed, and even fooled, by your untrustworthy feelings.

Sometimes when children will not drink their milk, the mother puts sugar in it. In like manner, when we are young, the Word is sweet to our taste because God has added some sugar. You may also find singing hymns so sweet. But as time goes on, the sugar will be reduced, and eventually the sweet taste in the Word and in the hymns will be gone. Eventually we shall have no ups and downs; all the days will be the same.

But it is hard not to go by our feelings. I hear some brothers and sisters pray so strongly and loudly in the meetings. I highly regard them; yet when I touch their daily lives, they disappoint me. Then I cannot stand it. I love the saints, but I cannot control the bitter feeling about the lack of correspondence between their daily life and their meeting life.

The disparity you mention between how we live and how we behave when we meet has been greatly troubling me. Some of our meetings have become theatrical performances, an offense to God and an offense to the saints. If we feel down at home, we should just come to the meeting that way. That is being real. When we are real, God will come in to heal us. After we have been sitting in the meeting for a short while, the merciful God may visit us, touch our heart, and cause the tears to flow. Then we may say, “O Lord, forgive me. I am so down. Lord, forgive me.” This is genuine, because it results from the Lord’s visiting us. When we thus receive grace, others are helped and we are changed. Such is the genuine Christian life and the genuine Christian meeting. To stir yourself up to perform in the meeting is abominable in the eyes of God.
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