Responding to God's Spirit

 

I am the world's worse person in regards to overreacting emotionally. I cry easily (whether happy, sad or overcome by God's goodness), laugh quickly, feel sad deeply and respond angrily when one of my triggers is pulled.

I am melancholy and emotional; but thankfully, God's Spirit is transforming my negative traits over the years. I am learning to be spirit-controlled, so that His fruit replaces my carnal tendencies (Galatians 5:22-23).

Yet, I am still not perfect. The biggest gift God gave to me is the ability to process my feelings before I express them. This often results in me staring blankly at someone and causing an uncomfortable void in the conversation.

They expect a reaction and I'm sitting numb before them. However, this is healthier than blasting them with anger or a fit of tears and confusing them with my fleshly responses.

Hunger, sleep deprivation, stress and emotional depletion will make us more vulnerable to overreacting with negative emotions. Removing those hindrances is of paramount importance.

I also learned to say, "I will talk to my husband about that and we will pray about it together. Then I will let you know." Some impatient people want an instant reply, but that is never wise to give to anyone about anything.

Journaling my feelings and my responses to their comment or request helps me to sort through my initial reactions. The Holy Spirit may even reveal unresolved conflicts in my subconscious mind that triggered the immediate negative response in me.

God's Spirit is teaching me to abide in my spirit instead of in my flesh and soul - thoughts, choices and emotions. I filter life through my spirit and then take stock of my emotional and physical responses. This is called setting a boundary, and it gives us space and time to hear God's wisdom.

Prayer:

Father God, teach us to respond to life and to people with the same care, compassion and love which Jesus exhibited during His lifetime. He did speak harshly to some people, like the Pharisees, but He had the authority to do this and we do not. Fill us with Your compassion and give us Your heart toward people, especially toward the household of Your Saints - the church.

Help us to mix Your wisdom with our emotional responses and to take the time to allow this to occur, even if it means that we do not say anything at all when someone says or does or requests something from us. It may be awkward for the moment, but it will prevent embarrassing and needless confrontation or apologies, and increase our effectiveness for Your Kingdom in this world. 

Thought for the Day:

Once the past, the current and the fearful future issues of our life are dealt with in our mind, then we can hear God's will about the matters at hand and walk in His Spirit while we pray without ceasing and obey His direction. - Proverbs 3:5-6

Fight, Flight or Faith

To “fight or flight” is the normal human reaction to trauma. We want to defend our self,  or to run from confrontation on any level. We either use our human ingenuity to escape from trials or else we just sit and complain about them.

James recommends that we find joy in our trials, knowing that they are building up our faith in God’s faithfulness, as well as increasing our endurance to face other trials in the future (James 1:2-4).

James assures us that endurance will help us to walk in complete perfection and to have no lack in any area of our life. We eventually know without a doubt that God will see us through any negative circumstance.

God allows trials to teach us that nothing else matters in our life except Jesus (Colossians 3:3-4). As we endure suffering, we wait on God in every aspect of our life, and He always provides.

Our beliefs about God affect our thoughts, words and deeds. If we believe by faith, we will also think, speak and act in faith (2 Corinthians 5:7). This allows the light of Christ to shine forth from our life.

We do not have to experience trials to trust God or to walk in the faith of God’s Son (Galatians 2:20). God also blesses us in the good times of life; and He loves it when we acknowledge His gifts and give Him thanks.

Prayer:

Father God, teach us to praise You in good times and in bad. Remind us that You are working out Your purpose in our life through every circumstance, which we face; and that You will make sure that everything works out to our advantage (Ephesians 2:10; Romans 8:28). We praise You for who You are, what You do for us and for Your Word, which encourages, guides and gives us a rich life of unending hope.

Thought for the Day:

It is impossible to please God, unless we have faith in His faithfulness.

– Hebrews 11:6

Communicating Strong Emotions

Read: Ephesians 4:21-32

“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” - Ephesians 4: 15

In times of communication, God recommends that we are quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger (James 1:19). Anger is actually a God-given emotion used to protect us from injury, but not to inflict injury on other people. Anger is a flag to let us know that something is wrong. The feelings of anger in our soul inform us that someone else’s behavior is offensive to us. God cautions us, however, to be slow to express it, and to guard against crossing over into sinful behavior with this possibly volatile emotion (Ephesians 4:26).

After conversion, God taught me to articulate my emotions with rational words rather than to curse at the person hurting my feelings. However, even after I eliminated profanity from my vocabulary, I still exploded in anger when someone’s words or behavior caused a fearful or insecure reaction in my soul. I used excessive anger to protect myself from perceived injustices. My anger struck hot and quickly like a volcano, and I left just as many deep scars behind in my wake.

God has an alternate plan of action for us. Rather than to explode in anger, we can rationally communicate to the other person that what they just did or said is not acceptable to us. People will behave toward us in the way in which we teach them to treat us. If we allow others to abuse us - verbally, mentally or physically - we are inviting more of that same behavior into our future. However, we can develop a habit of using premeditated wording to express our feelings, rather than to use hasty, angry words to verbally attack the offending party.

Rather than to respond with anger, I learned to say:

“I feel afraid when you …”
“I feel like you spend more time with …. than with me. I need more of your attention.”
“Thank you for your opinion, but I do not agree with you. Can we agree to disagree?”
“I will walk away if you say/do that again.”
“I think that you misunderstood the meaning behind my words/actions. Let me further explain to you how I feel (or why I took that action).”

In the face of confrontation, I still make it known in no uncertain terms that the offensive behavior is not acceptable to me. However, I attempt to respond with a confident, businesslike and resolute manner rather than to erupt in anger. Even in the face of a verbal onslaught, I state my feelings more clearly with firm, calm words rather than with angry, irrational ones. My husband and I even use a notebook to write out our feelings to one another. This way we do not speak off the top of our head and potentially hurt one another. It is easier to think before we write than it is to think before we speak!

Some people may never learn to accept what we say; and they may never change their behavior towards us. These people are not safe. We need a firm boundary between them and us. It is better to steer a wide path around such people who tend to abuse us, rather than to constantly put ourselves in harm’s way. When we take a step back and look at their actions from a spiritual frame of mind, we can pray for them and also about our response to them. Then we can speak firmly, but kindly in the face of any imposition from them or any attack from them against us.

Through practice, I learned to stand up for myself without hiding behind fierce anger and coarse words as protection against what I perceive as an assault (Ephesians 5:4). God encourages us to live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18). We cannot ever control another person’s actions or responses towards us, but we can put distance between an abusive person and us. We do not need to overreact and divorce the person or end a friendship, but we can separate and work on reconciliation between us through counseling and calm discussions.

I also now take my hurt feelings to the Lord before I talk to anyone else. He helps me to forgive the offender and to pray for their blessing, whether they ever respond positively to me or not. How they feel about me or what they think of me has no bearing on who I am or on my relationship with my Lord and Savior. In reality, His opinion of me is the only one that really matters.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, help me to put away slander, malice, coarse words and explosive anger. Remind me to use positive words to communicate how I feel and how I want to be treated. Help me to speak up for what I want and need without resorting to using negative emotions or exploding in anger. 

Thought for the Day:

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” - Proverbs 25:11