If we understand the significance of this experience which God gives us and walk according to His will, there is no danger at all. However, when the believer fails to understand God's goal and lives by this kind of feeling—intently pursuing in the presence of feeling while refusing to move in its absence—there is inevitably a spiritual danger. He is exposed to many dangers because he makes feeling his principle of life.
If a believer lives by this happy feeling, his will remains weak and is of no use to the spirit. The sense of the spirit also has no way of developing, since intuition in the spirit is being replaced by feeling. The person walks according to his emotion. As a result, the intuition in the spirit is suppressed by the emotion on the one hand, and on the other hand, his idled and unused intuition is hardly able to grow. We can know the intuition only when the emotion is quiet. The intuition is strengthened only when it is constantly in use. When a believer continues to live by his emotion, the will never has the ability to make decisions, and the intuition never gives a clear voice. Because the will is paralyzed, the believer needs feelings all the more to push the will into action. Consequently, the will turns according to feeling, proceeding when a feeling is present and halting when it is not. It is not able to function without the feeling. It constantly requires the feeling's encouragement. Hence, the believer's spiritual life declines day after day. In fact, from then on, it seems that there can be no spiritual life without the effect of the emotion. The emotion carries the same effect as a shot of morphine to the believer. What a pity that he remains unaware and still considers it as the peak of spiritual life and something that should be pursued!
Many believers are erratic because when this feeling comes, they not only feel the Lord's love but also feel their own fervent love toward the Lord. Must we deny even the feeling which generates a love for the Lord in us? Can the feeling which causes us to fervently love the Lord be harmful? These types of questions only indicate the believer's foolishness.
Let us ask some more questions. When the believer is filled with happiness, does he truly love the Lord or does he love the feeling of happiness? No doubt this kind of happiness is given to us by God, but is it not also God who withdraws it? If we genuinely love God, we will still fervently love Him no matter what circumstance He puts us in. If we only love when the feeling is present but not when it is absent, perhaps we only love our feeling, not God.
The believer, however, interprets such a feeling as being God Himself. He does not realize that God and God's joy are not the same. The Holy Spirit must instruct a believer before he realizes that he has been desperately seeking God's happiness and not God Himself when he feels dry. He does not love God; he loves the feeling which causes him to be happy. Although this feeling brings him the sense of God's love and presence, he does not love God directly. This feeling, which causes him to sense God's love and presence, refreshes him, enlightens him, and uplifts him. When he loses these sensations, he will pursue this feeling again. His heart's delight is God's happiness, not God. If he genuinely loves God, he should still love Him even when he is suffering through "many waters and floods."