The Benefits of Emotions

 

Thoughts and emotions are not the enemy of our spirit or of the Spirit of God. God puts His desires in our heart, and uses negative thoughts and emotions as red flags to alert us to unmet needs and unresolved conflicts in our life.

As we take these issues to the cross, we gain God's perspective on them, and His wisdom and truth on how to overcome or to fulfill them, until His peace rules in our heart.

The word "emotion" comes from the Latin word "exmovere" which means "to move out". Our emotions motivate us to feel, and then to do something about them.

Emotions energize us, express how we feel, arouse our passions, spice up our life and restore our soul. Living without emotion is to live in a mental world of clinical, analytical thoughts without expression.

Embracing our emotions is healthy and fulfilling. Denying them is clinical and unhealthy. We block off a part of our self that is very much like our God, who exhibits emotion in so many ways.

Usually, an emotional person is empathetic, not weak; compassionate, not unstable; child-like, not childish. Emotions are very vital to our psychological and physiological well-being.

Emotions influence our attitude about our self, our world and other people. They also impact our actions. We think thoughts and then feel feelings.

Our personality influences our emotions and our emotions affect how other people perceive us. Owning our feelings without blaming them on other people is a healthy activity which allows us to effectively control them and to submit them to God's Holy Spirit to perfect them and to make them more like His fruit (Galatians 5:22-23).

Prayer:

Father God, unto You I lift up my soul. My soul often grieves because of the cares of this world. Only You know how to best renew my mind with Your Word, restore my emotions to true joy and peace, and return my will to following after You.

You are my heart, and my soul rejoices before you. You set my feet to dancing the dance of joy, and I acknowledge You in all of my ways. We attest to the fact that all glory is due to Your name. You alone are worthy of all of our praises (Ephesians 3:4; Psalm 25:1, 29:2).

Thought for the Day:

Our soul is our personality. It contains our thoughts, our choices and our emotions. Faith brings light to our soul, and helps us to think before we speak, so we do not trip over our own words.

Sitting Quietly at Jesus' Feet

Sitting quietly at Jesus' feet is a tremendously healing endeavor. We cease from our labors and listen to His voice, feel His hand stroking our head, breathing in unison with Him as He listens to our troubles and trials, and receives our praise.

His presence fills us with His peace and joy in spite of circumstances. His ministry to our spirit by His Spirit makes a lasting impression on our soul as He calms the raging sea within our thoughts and emotions.

It is easier to keep busy than to sit quietly and still. We rush headlong into life and ignore the deep recesses of our soul that need healing; but these unresolved conflicts tear us down every day for the rest of our life - until we are willing to sit quietly and listen to our soul.

We feel vulnerable when too much of our inner self is exposed to the light of day. Satan's condemnation, the world's expectations and the negative self-talk in us from years of input by significant others in our life, make us uncomfortable with confronting our fears and insecurities.

It is important to pause during the day to prop up our feet, drink a cup of tea, do a craft, watch a wholesome show or movie, play a video game, paint a picture, learn a musical instrument, etc. This gives our soul a much needed chance to play and experience a time of abandon and creativity.

Proven scientific studies show that meditation decreases our negative attitudes and neurosis, as well as increases our feelings of control and security. Meditating on God's Word heals these psychosomatic issues and decreases their effects on our life.

                                                                  

God's Spirit is sanctifying our soul little by little and day by day. Our carnality is decreasing so that He may increase in us and through us. We do not attempt to perfect our self (Galatians 3:1-3), but we surrender to God's work within us (Romans 8). 

We pray without ceasing by consulting God each moment of our day (Proverbs 3:5-6) and we walk in the Spirit rather than fulfilling the former, diminishing, carnal desires of our flesh (Galatians 5:15-25; Colossians 3:3-4). We live in victory and fulfillment with His ceaseless peace and joy.

Prayer:

Father God, You draw us to Your heart through our wounds, scars and brokenness. You accomplish Your most powerful miracles through those of us who turn toward You in our weakness, rather than blaming You and turning away from You in our distress. You plant a seed for a miracle in every trial.

You use our brokenness to prove Your love for us and that You are sovereign in our life. You call us by name and give us treasures from our darkness and riches in the midst of the secret places of grief in our soul (Isaiah 45:3). Thank You for setting us free from worldly concerns and for reminding us to stay focused on You and Your will throughout our day.

Thought for the Day:

When we walk in the power and anointing of Christ in us and fulfill God's will for our life, we see the lasting fruit both of God's sanctifying work in our soul and of our spiritual endeavors in the lives of those God brings into our life; this causes us to rejoice constantly in God's faithfulness and goodness. 

Understanding Negative Emotions - Part 1

I am a very emotional person. My former husband despised this part of me and ended our relationship. What he failed to understand is that the same passion in me that caused me to laugh at his humor and love him unconditionally also triggered anger when I was not given a “say-so” in decisions that affected my life. What I failed to realize is that emotions from my past memories were added to the emotion of the current situation and they magnified my responses disproportionately.

Unresolved conflicts between people, even those that are years old, are splinters that fester forever if they are not removed. If we attempt to deal with the current situation in our own human strength, we may succeed in changing our perspective on the issue and diffuse the emotion. However, those same emotions will continue to resurface for the rest of our life, whenever a current issue triggers them, until they are totally resolved.

Once I learned to analyze my current negative emotion in order to discover the trigger, then I was able to ask God what lie Satan planted in my subconscious memory, which fed these current emotions. This is easy to do. Write down all of the phrases and statements that accompany the negative emotion, such as: “I am helpless.” “I do not matter.” “I am worthless.” “I am so stupid.” “I am not enough.” “I am not important.” “I have to perform well in order to be acceptable.” “Pride and rage can protect me from abuse.” “I am a victim of my circumstances.” “I am powerless.” “I am trapped, and there is no way out.” “If I tell, it will happen again.”

If we believe that the past is no longer relevant to the present, we are very deceived by Satan. Once God reveals a painful memory from the past, we can ask Him to reveal the source and heal the pain. He will speak His truth, which will dispel Satan’s lies. He may whisper a Bible verse, show us something in nature, put the words of a song in our heart or just shower us with His peace. Then, the emotion from the past will no longer influence our current emotions.

Prayer:

Father God, remind us that living in denial of the pain of the past only causes us to suffer with these unresolved conflicts for the rest of our life. Once we come to You for healing, You carry us through the memories and help us to replace Satan’s lies with Your truth. Search us and know our heart, try us and show us our anxious thoughts. See if there are any painful memories from our past compounding our current emotions, and lead us to understand the cause and cure for them (Psalm 139:23-24).

Thought for the Day:

When God restores our soul, we have no more pain in that memory from the past.