Christian artist Kirk Franklin is a sensitive soul, and while that fact might seem like a good thing, the singer insists that it has always been "an enemy of my faith."
"I am an artist to my core. Sunrises inspire me, I can feel seasons change internally, and warm colors make me think of melodies when I sit down at the piano. I am a man who has been very steeped in his emotions. For every good, there is a bad," he admitted in the Patheos blog.
Franklin said that there are certain things in the Bible that require a person to act before feeling, and for someone who is very in touch with his emotions, he finds this hard to put into practice. But he has learned that obedience is not an emotion, and that it makes God happy when Christians choose to do something He wants over what they feel.
"At first I believed this meant I needed to lift my hands, dance, smile, and celebrate in connection to human emotions. Since then, I've been taught that – instead – this is a call to obedience: no matter how I feel, God the Father charges me to do what he says, in spite of how I feel," he explained.
Franklin initially thought that doing these things made him fake. If he thanked God for something he prayed for but did not get, it felt insulting. But he has learned, and is still learning, that giving thanks to God no matter how he feels is the greatest act of faith one can give God.
He reasoned that there is nothing sinful about feelings, but there is something completely wrong if they are not under the submission of God.
"It's a rigorous discipline to beat our bodies to come under subjection to the truth that feelings have no intellect and simply connect themselves to fleeting thoughts. Consequently, feelings must be slaves to truth — period — or they'll drive you crazy," he warned.
