Do Feelings Control Us?

We often experience feelings which we cannot express. We can communicate our basic mood such as happy, sad, mad, glad, frustrated, etc. However, we cannot distinctly and clearly share how we really feel unless we develop a more detailed vocabulary

( http://wire.wisc.edu/quizzesnmore/emotionwords.aspx ).

What type of happy do we feel? Glad or elated? Are we simply sad or actually depressed or devastated? Are we mad or annoyed or fuming? Expressing in more detail how we feel helps us to better understand our self, and allows others to better understand us.

Our feelings can totally overwhelm our soul. We believe that we must act on them or explode. Sometimes we do explode and end up wounding other people that we really care about.

Feelings are red flags to enable us to see how our environment is effecting us. We do not have to act on them, but we can use them to change our environment for the better.

We cannot control other people, but we can control our choices. If someone makes a choice that is intolerable to us, we can make our own choice to temporarily remove our self from that situation until it is resolved.

Our feelings do not define us, but they do express how our environment is affecting us. As we are aware of and describe what we are feeling, we can make changes to turn our negative feelings into positive ones.

We may change our focus, or we can change the situation, or we can pray for God's deliverance from an unhealthy or unholy or unsuitable situation or environment, which we cannot change.

Journaling helps us to sort out our feelings; then if want to keep our feelings private, we can rip the page to shreds or burn it in the campfire or a coffee can!

The important point is to acknowledge and provide for our self, which is using our feelings to indicate what we really need. When we validate our self, we affirm that we are special and loved unconditionally.

God gave us feelings for our good, and we should pay attention to our soul and how life is impacting us. This gives us a sense of being cared for, if by no one other than our Daddy God and our self. Sometimes, that is all we really need.

Prayer:
Father God, as we trust in and rely on You to know what is best for us, You always hear us from Your holy hill and You turn even the worse situation into blessings for our eventual good. We come to a breaking point in our life where we let go of control and dive into the current of life. Instead of fighting the circumstances, we go with Your flow as You use us for Your Kingdom work.

At times we cling to our feelings as a defense or as a reason to hide from reality or truth. We use them as a weapon and slay with our words what we perceive as the opposition. Your Word encourages us that a soft answer turns away wrath (Proverbs 15:1). Teach us to respond with a soft answer, no matter how upset we feel, and remind us that we are Your special children and that You love us beyond words.

Thought for the Day:

We can acknowledge our emotions and allow them to explain how our situation is affecting us, but then we can let them go and pray for God's wisdom to see more clearly what action is needed to rectify the situation.

Renewed Mind - Part 4 - God-Given Emotions

Our soul - our thoughts, choices and emotions - is a vital part of who we are as human beings. Ignoring our soul only stunts our growth both in our soul and in our spirit.  

A need for attention, dependence on others, and fear of being alone are results of abandonment issues from our childhood. Destructive acts, pouting, self-centeredness and temper tantrums all stem from deep deprivation and anger from our past.

Our lack of self-awareness and failure to accept our emotions will compound our past wounds, which we carry with us every day of our life, some of them since conception.

Our relationships suffer due to emotional, behavioral and mental deficits. Psychologically, we are stuck in the unresolved issues of our past, which prevent us from experiencing adulthood with a mature attitude.

We fail to succeed in most of our endeavors due to the lack of adult persistence, self-control and planning. Some of us are consumed with anger and unforgiveness, which we internalize.

This results in depression for which we take medication. This simply masks the pain in our soul and causes more grief as well as physical ailments such as headaches, and stomach and breathing and heart related issues.

If we allow our self to feel our anger, we can work through it to the grief buried within our subconscious mind (Ephesians 4:26). We can journal our thoughts and feelings, and ask God to help us to find the root cause of our grief and other negative emotions.

Never apologize for your emotions. God gave them to us. They are either a sign of sickness in our soul, a precaution to keep us safe, and an expression of the joy He places in the heart of His children (Proverbs 16:32, 17:22, 19:8; Ephesians 4:26-27).

After we identify the source of our negative emotions, we can grieve our losses and affirm and validate our feelings. Then we pray for God's wisdom and healing. 

We forgive the perpetrators, who wounded us and caused our grief; and we move into the freedom and rest of the Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 13:5; John 8:36).

Prayer:

Father God, there are few of us on this earth who did not experience some form of abuse in our lifetime. We never learned to handle our emotions and often sin because of them. We may minimize, disassociate from or magnify our feelings; but teach us to learn from them, and to bring them to You for understanding and healing.

Help us to stop blaming our self for the abuse we suffered; to release the pent up energy from our negative emotions without sinning against You or someone else; and to allow our self to cry and grieve our losses. Then we can release the incident to You and find Your forgiveness for those who wounded us.

Thought for the Day:

God and Christ both gave us clear examples of how emotions are a normal and healthy part of life.

Serving in the Body of Christ

The Body of Christ is too busy for its own good. We neglect our Lord and one another, because we make our own pursuits more important than God’s will for our life (1 Peter 4:10; Ephesians 2:10).

The government took over so many of our ministries, because the needs went unmet. Take, for instance, the care of our elderly. They go unvisited and feel unwanted, because we do not make them a priority in our churches.

Elderly Saints, who ministered for the Lord all of their life, need and deserve our attention. Rides to doctor appointments, visits, taking someone out to lunch, cards, phone calls and praying for one another are just a few ways that we can minister to our elderly.

Parents are so busy today that children's workers in the Body of Christ can fill in the gaps and encourage our children to grow up in service to God. Many adults give their children and youth leaders credit for their dedication to God. We influence eternity by our service to children now.

However, caring for the children attending our churches is another neglected ministry. We already raised our children, or we are in the process of raising them, and we want nothing to do with children's ministries in the Body of Christ.

Single parents need the most help. We can babysit to give these parents a chance to allow their Inner Child to play. Gifting these hardworking parents with a certificate to go out to eat or to buy whatever they need at a retail store is also helpful on their tight budget.

Many churches end up hiring people in order to have someone committed to the children, since very few people will commit to this ministry. Our children need Godly authority, responsibility, approval and nurturing in the same way which God relates to us (John 3:16; Romans 5:8).

If we all band together, the care required in these vital ministries will not be a burden on any one person, but will be a blessing for everyone involved (Romans 15:7).

We can make time for God and His Body as a priority in our schedule. Before we do anything, we consult the Lord and live each moment in His perfect will for us (Ephesians 2:10). While living by the Spirit, we will all function as a valuable member of the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).

Prayer:

Father God, teach us to love Your Body as You love us. Allow us to be Your ambassadors to Your Body. Unconditional love and acceptance gives Your Body the assurance we all crave as human beings, regardless of our age or social/economic status. Remind us to give one another grace in our failings and to encourage one another in our successes.

Give us listening ears and the ability to recognize body language in order to be present with one another, rather than taking each other for granted. Help us to make one another feel safe to share our issues with each other, so we can bear each others burdens as You expect us to do (Galatians 6:2).

Thought for the Day:

If Satan can keep us in bondage to our failures, he cripples us in our service to God and His Body; as we learn to nurture and forgive our self, we will have an increased ability to accept, nurture, affirm and forgive one another. 

- Mark 12:30-31