Choice.

Okay, as a disclaimer here, I feel like this post is something that my in-person friends have heard me say a lot, and I may have also touched on it briefly here, so if you feel like you're having deja vu, it's because I'm basic and predictable.

Now that we've got THAT outta the way, I want to talk about love again, but this time, in a different way. And also, I'm going to talk about faith again, but differently. So really, I'm a broken record.

I currently lead the church choir for my congregation. Right now we're singing a song called "I Believe". Composed by Mark A. Miller, the lyrics are modified from an anonymous poem written by a Jewish fugitive on the wall of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, around the time of the Holocaust. Those lyrics are:

"I believe in the sun even when it's not shining. 

I believe in love even when I don't feel it.

I believe in God even when God is silent."

These lyrics teach a principle that I think is so incredibly powerful -- that the choice to believe can come even when our feelings don't necessarily match up with that choice.

Feelings are HARD, folks. I am a deep feeler, and so you can trust me when I say that just going off of feelings, it's hard to decide what sort of a day I'm having because it changes so rapidly from one moment to the next. One second, I'm happy because I got a cute text from a boy I like, but three seconds later I've overthought the cute text and am CONVINCED he's full of it (sorry, cute-text-sending boys of the world), and then I'm like, "WAIT OH MY GOSH DID I TURN OFF THE OVEN THREE HOURS AGO AFTER I MADE THAT FROZEN PIZZA" immediately followed by "right yeah I turned it off because I accidentally turned on the timer while I was trying to turn it off", and then I remember I have plans for the next day and I'm like, "should I cancel those and sleep in all weekend?" followed by feelings of guilt for wanting to spend more quality time with my bed than with my actual friends, and so it goes. I can and have felt pretty much the full spectrum of human emotion in a single day. (Side note: that stuff is EXHAUSTING. Which is probably why I sometimes desire to sleep more than I desire to see my friends.)

My point is, I understand deeply how messy emotions can be. And while I believe there's a case to be made for the old counsel to "follow your heart", I also know that in my own experience, my life has been one big struggle to work around a lot of the irrational, not-informed-by-reality feelings that I feel. And let me give you my personal testimony about this: feelings do not determine your actions. You don't have to do anything just because you feel a certain way.

I used to get annoyed when people would tell me to choose to be happy. "I don't get to decide that," I'd insist. But then I heard a better explanation: what if happiness wasn't really a feeling, but a mindset? What if happiness was simply the filter you put your life through -- the way you chose to look at the circumstances you're given? Could it then be possible to be happy but not feel happy? Maybe these people didn't have the same definition of happiness, but it could be that they weren't telling me to choose to feel differently -- which is a lot harder for me to do -- but to think differently.

In the Book of Mormon, it mentions a similar idea. Nephi, a prophet-historian near the beginning of the book, is told by God to flee into the wilderness with his family and his people because his older brothers are angry with him and want to kill him. And yet, despite all this hardship, Nephi tells his audience that he and his people lived "after the manner of happiness." This phrasing is so unique, and I honestly feel like it really nails it. To me, to live after the manner of happiness is to do things strategically to maximize happiness. It is the difference between feeling happy and being happy. If you simply feel happy, that's great, but it's temporary. But if you are happy, happiness is a part of you. You choose to do things you know will bring you the greatest happiness, even if you don't feel like it right then. And this is the crux of where I'm going with all this: it is infinitely more important to act correctly than it is to feel correctly because, in this imperfect world, our feelings are not always good guides toward the best course of action.

I've often heard people use the phrase "going through the motions" used as a condemning one, especially applied to the sphere of religious practice. We accuse others or ourselves of "just going through the motions" as an indictment -- it means we aren't feeling the love for God that should motivate our faithful actions. I most often heard this used while I was on my mission -- people were "doing missionary things", but their heart wasn't in it. I'm not lying when I say I probably heard that once a week.

I hated it pretty much every time I heard it. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something about it sat wrong with me. I understood it was important for missionary work to be motivated by love, but a lot of my leaders talked about love like it was a feeling, and I felt deep in my soul that that wasn't true.

My heart took hold of an idea, though, that I really loved. That idea was that if you were struggling to love someone, serve them. This was most commonly used as a way to soothe tension between companions, but I loved it so much I wanted to apply it to everyone. It's still a guiding philosophy that I have, and I think it's because it tests a hypothesis that I have had for a long time, and proves it true. (And I really like to be right.)

My hypothesis was that feelings often follow actions. That's what we often challenged people to do with commandments as we taught them the missionary discussions: we'd tell them if they didn't understand why keeping a certain commandment was important, they could test it out by living it. Inevitably, the testimony of that commandment would come as the person would act. That is faith -- to act in the face of uncertainty.

Love, I learned, works the exact same way. I was sitting in a class designed to teach my classmates and me how to form strong families that could endure eternally, and my professor rocked my world when he said this: "If you only love someone when you're feeling loving feelings, that's beginner-level stuff." I was floored. My actual professor who spent actual years getting a Ph.D. in social science literally told me and a room full of students that love has very little to do with what you're feeling, although those loving feelings are admittedly very wonderful. Love is, simply put, the choice to put someone's needs above your own -- and how often do we feel like doing that? How often do we want to just do our own thing and not consider someone else's feelings as part of the grand equation? For me, that happens a lot. And yet, if I ever hope to truly love another person, in the same way that Christ loved us, that will take a fair amount of working around feelings (of anxiety, discomfort, irritation, frustration, disappointment, etc.) to see into the heart of a person. That's something that takes effort; it's not easy, and yet it yields the most beautiful rewards. To love another person is truly to see the face of God. I'm grateful that even though I'm far from perfect at it, God has let me see His face many times as I have come to love so many of the incredible people on this glorious earth.

The last area I want to apply this to is the arena of faith. I want to speak directly to the person reading my words who has questions about the gospel. I want to talk to you, who aren't sure you believe anymore, because you can't seem to feel anything.

Believe in the sun even when it's not shining. Believe in love even when you can't feel it. Believe in God even when God is silent.

If all you can do is go through the motions, that is enough for now. Go through the motions. Go through the motions for as long as it takes for the devotion to come. Be obedient. Be faithful. Believe that the feelings will follow your choice to do what you know will bring them to you. It may take months or years. But I promise it is worth it. Build your foundation on living a life like Jesus' life, and the rewards of that faith will bless you for longer than the pain of heavenly silence could ever last.

Of the Savior, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said, "in order for His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.

But Jesus held on. He pressed on. The goodness in Him allowed faith to triumph even in a state of complete anguish. The trust He lived by told Him in spite of His feelings that divine compassion is never absent, that God is always faithful, that He never flees nor fails us. When the uttermost farthing had then been paid, when Christ’s determination to be faithful was as obvious as it was utterly invincible, finally and mercifully, it was 'finished.' Against all odds and with none to help or uphold Him, Jesus of Nazareth, the living Son of the living God, restored physical life where death had held sway and brought joyful, spiritual redemption out of sin, hellish darkness, and despair. With faith in the God He knew was there, He could say in triumph, 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.'"

Be like Jesus. Know that even should your heart wander, if you keep your feet on the path, your heart will return. And even when you stumble on that path, know that because Christ persevered against these seemingly unbeatable odds, there is always a hand extended to lift you up and bring you back. You will stumble. You may even fall. And there will be times when you cannot feel love, or faith, or even hope. But remember -- love, faith, and hope are not feelings, but actions. We show them by living after their manner, not by sustaining the emotions behind them. 

Be faithful. God is with you, whether you feel Him or not.