Topic: life as a christian

I don't think you have to be feeling joy all the time to have a good relationship with God. Intellectual connections are valid as well. Emotion isn't the only way to relate and connect with both your world and religion. And faith is not necessarily emotion based -- but rather based on a sense of what is right and true. Plus, you can live knowing goodness and joy without expressing it all the time.
I have had this difficulty in the past, but simply maintained my effort to live righteously and morally every day and have now and again been rewarded with feelings of peace and validation.

Sorry but I disagree that not having an affective response to God is sin. It may be sad, it may be distressing, it may be different from everybody else - but sin it certainly is NOT.

Sin is where you go against God's laws - there is no injunction to say we have to feel God, to have "warm fuzzies".

Your husband's projecting his own insecure unrealistic expectations of himself upon others. Because of this added pressure and anxiety to feel a certain way he has effectively ruined any chance of feeling joy in god because you seek instead to find joy in a husband whose personal beliefs threaten your own integrity instead of encourage it. One must have doubt to know true faith. Joy is not reactive and until the stimulus is removed, joy cannot exist.

I have a struggle with it. "God is love" is what they all say, but I have difficult figuring out this "love" feeling. And also people often say that loving God is one of the most important feelings... I feel like a heretic to do not express this feeling. Fortunately, I think God understand my situation with emotional issues and accepts me as I am, but I still feel a bit depressed about it. Anyone shares this?

Yeah joy is a confusing feeling for me to understand. I certainly have never felt it. And when I’ve asked people to define it they often can’t. And I am saved, I was saved as an adult and remember how lost I was before and the sense of being found. Also Christians are my people even though they annoy me sometimes. But I guess who doesn’t get annoyed at their bros and sis from time to time. Anyhow, James 4:17 clears up a lot of confusion for me. If you know the right thing to do and you don’t do it, then it is a sin.

Don’t let anyone guilt you for something without them defending their position with scripture. If scripture used in context and appropriately says something is wrong, then it is. And as far as I can think, there are no verses that say not feeling joy is a sin.

I disagree with that too, original poster. Loving someone even in the face of feeling cold, pale, livid anger (the kind that won't be resolved unless something ugly happens) is the whole idea covenant love or loving-kindness , a well-known. attribute of the Almighty.