About the Book
"Feelings Are Fickle" by Joyce Meyer explores the impact of negative emotions and how they can affect our relationships, decisions, and overall well-being. Meyer offers practical advice on how to manage our emotions and rely on faith and God's guidance for true peace and happiness. The book emphasizes the importance of choosing faith over feelings and trusting in God's plan for our lives.
William Booth
General William Boothâs early life
William Booth was born in Nottingham in 1829 of well-bred parents who had become poor. He was a lively lad nicknamed Wilful Wil. At the age of fifteen he was converted in the Methodist chapel and became the leader of a band of teenage evangelists who called him Captain and held street meetings with remarkable success.
In 1851 he began full-time Christian work among the Methodist Reformers in London and later in Lincolnshire. After a period in a theological college he became a minister of the Methodist New Connexion. His heart however was with the poor people unreached by his church, and in 1861 he left the Methodists to give himself freely to the work of evangelism. Joined by Catherine, his devoted wife, they saw their ministry break out into real revival, which in Cornwall spread far and wide.
One memorable day in July 1865, after exploring the streets in an East End district where he was to conduct a mission, the terrible poverty, vice and degradation of these needy people struck home to his heart. He arrived at his Hammersmith home just before midnight and greeted his waiting Catherine with these words: âDarling, I have found my destiny!â She understood him. Together they had ministered Godâs grace to Godâs poor in many places.
Now they were to spend their lives bringing deliverance to Satanâs captives in the evil jungle of Londonâs slums. One day William took Bramwell, his son, into an East End pub which was crammed full of dirty, intoxicated creatures. Seeing the appalled look on his sonâs face, he said gently, âBramwell, these are our peopleâthe people I want you to live for.â
William and Catherine loved each other passionately all their lives. And no less passionately did they love their Lord together. Now, although penniless, together with their dedicated children, they moved out in great faith to bring Christâs abundant life to Londonâs poverty-stricken, devil-oppressed millions.
At first their organisation was called the Christian Mission. In spite of brutal opposition and much cruel hardship, the Lord blessed this work, and it spread rapidly.
William Booth was the dynamic leader who called young men and women to join him in this full-time crusade. With enthusiastic abandon, hundreds gave up all to follow him.
âMake your will, pack your box, kiss your girl and be ready in a weekâ, he told one young volunteer.
Salvation Army born
One day as William was dictating a report on the work to George Railton, his secretary, he said, âWe are a volunteer army,â
âNoâ, said Bramwell, âI am a regular or nothing.â
His father stopped in his stride, bent over Railton, took the pen from his hand, and crossing out the word âvolunteerâ, wrote âsalvationâ. The two young men stared at the phrase âa salvation armyâ, then both exclaimed âHallelujahâ. So the Salvation Army was born.
As these dedicated, Spirit-filled soldiers of the cross flung themselves into the battle against evil under their blood and fire banner, amazing miracles of deliverance occurred. Alcoholics, prostitutes and criminals were set free and changed into workaday saints.
Cecil Rhodes once visited the Salvation Army farm colony for men at Hadleigh, Essex, and asked after a notorious criminal who had been converted and rehabilitated there.
âOhâ, was the answer, âHe has left the colony and has had a regular job outside now for twelve months.â
âWellâ said Rhodes in astonishment, âif you have kept that man working for a year, I will believe in miracles.â
Slave traffic
The power that changed and delivered was the power of the Holy Spirit. Bramwell Booth in his book Echoes and Memories describes how this power operated, especially after whole nights of prayer. Persons hostile to the Army would come under deep conviction and fall prostrate to the ground, afterward to rise penitent, forgiven and changed. Healings often occurred and all the gifts of the Spirit were manifested as the Lord operated through His revived Body under William Boothâs leadership.
Terrible evils lay hidden under the curtain of Victorian social life in the nineteenth century. The Salvation Army unmasked and fought them. Its work among prostitutes soon revealed the appalling wickedness of the white slave traffic, in which girls of thirteen were sold by their parents to the pimps who used them in their profitable brothels, or who traded them on the Continent.
âThousands of innocent girls, most of them under sixteen, were shipped as regularly as cattle to the state-regulated brothels of Brussels and Antwerp.â (Collier).
Imprisoned
In order to expose this vile trade, W. T. Stead (editor of The Pall Mall Gazette) and Bramwell Booth plotted to buy such a child in order to shock the Victorians into facing the fact of this hidden moral cancer in their society. This thirteen-year-old girl, Eliza Armstrong, was bought from her mother for ÂŁ5 and placed in the care of Salvationists in France.
W. T. Stead told the story in a series of explosive articles in The Pall Mall Gazette which raised such a furore that Parliament passed a law raising the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen. However, Booth and Stead were prosecuted for abduction, and Stead was imprisoned for three months.
William Booth always believed the essential cause of social evil and suffering was sin, and that salvation from sin was its essential cure. But as his work progressed, he became increasingly convinced that social redemption and reform should be an integral part of Christian mission.
So at the age of sixty he startled England with the publication of the massive volume entitled In Darkest England, and the Way Out. It was packed with facts and statistics concerning Britainâs submerged corruption, and proved that a large proportion of her population was homeless, destitute and starving. It also outlined Boothâs answer to the problem â his own attempt to begin to build the welfare state.
All this was the result of two yearsâ laborious research by many people, including the loyal W. T. Stead. On the day the volume was finished and ready for publication, Stead was conning its final pages in the home of the Booths. At last he said, âThat work will echo round the world. I rejoice with an exceeding great joy.â
âAnd Iâ, whispered Catherine, dying of cancer in a corner of the room, âAnd I most of all thank God. Thank God!â As the work of the Salvation Army spread throughout Britain and into many countries overseas, it met with brutal hostility. In many places Skeleton Armies were organised to sabotage this work of God. Hundreds of officers were attacked and injured (some for life). Halls and offices were smashed and fired. Meetings were broken up by gangs organised by brothel keepers and hostile publicans.
One sympathiser in Worthing defended his life and property with a revolver. But Boothâs soldiers endured the persecution for many years, often winning over their opponents by their own offensive of Christian love.
The Army that William Booth created under God was an extension of his own dedicated personality. It expressed his own resolve in his words which Collier places on the first page of his book:
âWhile women weep as they do now, Iâll fight; while little children go hungry as they do now, Iâll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, Iâll fightâIâll fight to the very end!â
Toward the end of his life, he became blind. When he heard the doctorâs verdict that he would never see again, he said to his son: âBramwell, I have done what I could for God and the people with my eyes. Now I shall see what I can do for God and the people without my eyes.â
But the old warrior had finally laid down his sword. His daughter, Eva, head of the Armyâs work in America, came home to say her last farewell. Standing at the window she described to her father the glory of that eveningâs sunset.
âI cannot see it,â said the General, âbut I shall see the dawn.â
Food Rules
A graduate student sits at a booth with friends, his second drink near empty. âCan I refill you?â the waiter asks. A mother sees the chocolate as she reaches for her youngestâs sippy cup. She tries not to eat sugar in the afternoons, but sheâs tired and stressed, and the children arenât looking. A father comes back to the kitchen after putting the kids down. Dinner is done, but the leftover pizza is still sitting out. The day has drained him, and another few pieces seem harmless. Compared to the battles many fight â against addiction, against pornography, against anger, against pride â scenarios such as these may seem too trivial for discussion. Donât we have bigger sins to worry about than the gluttony of secret snacks and third helpings? And yet, food is a bigger battleground than many recognize. Do you remember Mosesâs terse description of the worldâs first sin? She took of its fruit and ate , and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate . (Genesis 3:6) Murder did not bar Adam and Eve from paradise â nor did adultery, theft, lying, or blasphemy. Eating  did. Our first parents ate their way out of Eden. And in our own way, so do we. Garden of Eating Food problems, whether large (buffet binging) or small (hidden, uncontrolled snacking), go back to the beginning. Our own moments before the refrigerator or the cupboard can, in some small measure, reenact that moment by the tree. And apart from well-timed grace from God, we often respond in one of two ungodly ways. âOur first parents ate their way out of Eden. And in our own way, so do we.â Some, like Adam and Eve, choose to indulge . They sense, on some level, that to eat is to quiet the voice of conscience and weaken the walls of self-control (Proverbs 25:28). They would recognize, if they stopped to ponder and pray, that this âeating is not from faithâ (Romans 14:23). But they neither stop, nor ponder, nor pray. Instead, they tip their glass for another drink, snatch and swallow the chocolate, grab a few more slices. Wisdomâs protest avails little against the suggestion of âjust one more.â âSince Eden,â Derek Kidner writes, âman has wanted the last ounce out of life, as though beyond Godâs âenoughâ lay ecstasy, not nauseaâ ( Proverbs , 152). And so, the indulgent drink and grab and sip and snack, forgetting that their grasping leads them, not deeper into Edenâs heart, but farther outside Edenâs walls, where, nauseous and bloated, they bow to the god called âbellyâ (Philippians 3:19; see also Romans 16:18). Meanwhile, others choose to deny . Their motto is not âEat, drink, be merryâ (Luke 12:19), but âDo not handle, do not taste, do not touchâ (Colossians 2:21). They frantically count calories, buy scales, and build their lives on the first floor of the food pyramid. Though they may not impose their diets on others, at least for themselves they ârequire abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgivingâ (1 Timothy 4:3) â as if one should see Edenâs lawful fruit and say, âIâm good with grass.â If our God-given appetites are a stallion, some let the horse run unbridled, while others prefer to shut him up in a stable. Still others, of course, alternate (sometimes wildly) between the two. In Christ, however, God teaches us to ride. Appetite Redeemed Paulâs familiar command to âbe imitators of me, as I am of Christâ (1 Corinthians 11:1) comes, surprisingly enough, in the context of food  (see 1 Corinthians 8â10, especially 8:7â13 and 10:14â33). And the Gospels tell us why: in Jesus, we find appetite redeemed. âThe Son of Man came eating and drinking,â Jesus says of himself (Matthew 11:19) â and he wasnât exaggerating. Have you ever noticed just how often the Gospels mention food? Jesusâs first miracle multiplied wine (John 2:1â11); two of his most famous multiplied bread (Matthew 14:13â21; 15:32â39). He regularly dined as a guest at othersâ homes, whether with tax collectors or Pharisees (Mark 2:13â17; Luke 14:1). He told parables about seeds and leaven, feasts and fattened calves (Matthew 13:1â9, 33; Luke 14:7â11; 15:11â32). When he met his disciples after his resurrection, he asked, âHave you anything here to eat?â (Luke 24:41) â another time, he took the initiative and cooked them breakfast himself (John 21:12). No wonder he thought it good for us to remember him over a meal (Matthew 26:26â29). And yet, for all of his freedom with food, he was no glutton or drunkard. Jesus could feast, but he could also fast â even for forty days and forty nights when necessary (Matthew 4:2). At meals, you never get the sense that he was preoccupied with his plate; rather, God and neighbor were his constant concern (Mark 2:13â17; Luke 7:36â50). And so, when the tempter found him in his weakness, and suggested he make bread to break his fast, our second Adam gave a resolute no  (Matthew 4:3â4). Here is a man who knows how to ride a stallion. While some indulged, and others denied, our Lord Jesus directed  his appetite. Meeting Edenâs Maker If we are going to imitate Jesus in his eating, we will need more than the right food rules. Adam and Eve did not fall, youâll remember, for lack of a diet. No, we imitate Jesusâs eating only as we enjoy the kind of communion he had with the Father. This touches the root of the failure at the tree, doesnât it? Before Eve reached for the fruit, she let the serpent cast a shadow over her Fatherâs face. She let him convince her that the God of paradise, as Sinclair Ferguson writes, âwas possessed of a narrow and restrictive spirit bordering on the malignâ ( The Whole Christ , 80). The god of the serpentâs beguiling was a misanthrope deity, one who kept his best fruit on forbidden trees. And so, Eve reached. But through Jesus Christ, we meet God again: the real Maker of Eden, and the only one who can break and tame our appetites. Here is the God who made all the earthâs food; who planted trees on a hundred hills and said, âEat!â (Genesis 2:16); who feeds his people from âthe abundance of [his] house,â and gives âthem drink of the river of [his] delightsâ (Psalm 36:8); who does not withhold anything good from his own (Psalm 84:11); and who, in the fullness of time, withheld not even the greatest of all goods: his beloved Son (Romans 8:32). âWe eat, drink, and abstain to the glory of God only when we, like Jesus, taste God himself as our choicest food.â Unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus ate (and abstained) in the presence of this unfathomably good God. And so, when he ate, he gave thanks to the Giver (Matthew 14:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24). When he ran up against his Fatherâs âYou shall not eat,â he did not silence conscience or discard self-control, but feasted on something better than bread alone (Matthew 4:4). âMy food,â he told his disciples, âis to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his workâ (John 4:34). He knew there was a time to eat and a time to abstain, and that both times were governed by the goodness of God. We eat, drink, and abstain to the glory of God only when we, like Jesus, taste God himself as our choicest food (1 Corinthians 10:31; Psalm 34:8). Direct Your Appetite Admittedly, the line between just enough  and too much  is a blurry one, and even the most mature can fail to notice that border until theyâve eaten beyond it. Even still, between the overflowing plate of indulgence and the empty plate of denial is a third plate, one we increasingly discern and choose as the Spirit refines our heartâs palate. Here, we neither indulge nor deny our appetites, but like our Lord Jesus, we direct  them. So then, there you are, ready to grab another portion, take another drink, down another handful, though your best spiritual wisdom dictates otherwise. You are ready, in other words, to reach past Godâs âenoughâ once again. What restores your sanity in that moment? Not repeating the rules with greater fervor, but following the rules back to the mouth of an infinitely good God. When you sense that you have reached Godâs âenoughâ â perhaps through briefly stopping, pondering, praying â you have reached the wall keeping you from leaving the Eden of communion with Christ, that Food better than all food (John 4:34). And so, you walk away, perhaps humming a hymn to the God who is good: Thou art giving and forgiving, Ever blessing, ever blest, Wellspring of the joy of living, Ocean depth of happy rest! This is the Maker of Eden, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if the real God is this  good, then we need not grasp for what he has not given.