God gave us a wide gamut of emotions, which signal to us
the mood in which our spirit, soul and body exist. Joyful emotions arise from
positive experiences, but also from a spiritual outlook on negative
circumstances.
Negative emotions signal areas in our life, which need
our attention along with prayer for God's wisdom, direction and solutions.
These emotions are not meant for expression, but as red flags to gain our
attention and point out negative strongholds.
They will destroy us if we ruminate on them or over react
because of them. However, they can also apprise us of how life is affecting us
and give us an opportunity to change our circumstances or to give the issues to
God's faithful care (1 Peter 5:7).
The most basic source of these negative emotion signal us
of an unmet need for our body or soul - our thoughts and emotions. Once we
discern their cause, we realize that we can meet our own need or trust God to
care for that need.
Also, Satan's lies will create negative emotions in the
battleground of our mind. He whispers his lies and we believe them.
These lies
affect our feelings about our self, destroy our relationships with God and
other people, and also fuel other negative emotions, which may even effect our
physical, mental and emotional health.
We often have unrealistic expectations for God, people,
places and situations in our life, which disappoint us when they fail to
happen. This causes a myriad of negative emotions to bombard our soul, which
often overwhelm us.
These inordinate expectations, pet peeves and stresses in
our life are idols, because we exalt them above our trust in God (Colossians
3:5). We desire fulfillment in areas that are unhealthy for us or out of God's
timing or will for our life.
Our adverse reactions to life can be both destructive
and informative. The ultimate outcome depends on our attitude, spiritual
maturity and the action, which we take because of them.
Prayer:
Father God, teach us to heed the warning of these
negative emotions, so that we can meet our physical, mental and emotional needs
in ways, which are pleasing to You; we can hear Your truth about Satan's lies
and either dispel them or change our focus about them; or we can surrender the
idols in our life to You and wait on your timing and will or Your wisdom on
dealing with the root cause of our negative emotions.
Remind us to schedule quiet times throughout our day,
regardless of the amount of time we can make for them, so that we can take an
inventory of our physical, mental and emotional health. Strengthen our inner
being by Your Holy Spirit to hear Your wisdom from Christ in us in order to
bear with, to change our focus about, or to deal with these issues. We trust
You to care for us.
Thought for the Day:
Although we live in this earthly world, we exist in the
spiritual realm; God gives us spiritual weapons to pull down strongholds, cast
down Satan's lies and anything else, which attempts to exalt itself against the
Truth of God as God's Spirit enables us to bring every thought into captivity
to the obedience of Christ. - 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
