![]() There’s something my pastor used to say which I’ve come to experience personally: “When you see as God sees, you will do as God does. Through this, I learned that what I choose to value with my actions can affect what I emotionally treasure in my heart. Today, I love to pray and read the Word much more than I did in the past. Over time, my heart began to follow suit. So, with God’s help, I began to pray and read the Word as my way of giving value to these things, regardless of whether I felt like doing so or not. But I asked the Lord to help me to want to treasure whatever was upon His heart. This gives me a lot of encouragement because it means that I don’t have to helplessly succumb to the influence of my emotions!įor example, I didn’t use to like to pray or read the Word. However, what God was saying in the verse was this: what I intentionally choose to value will eventually become what my heart cherishes. That is, until one day when God spoke to me through Matthew 6:21: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” He brought to my attention that the verse didn’t say, “Where your heart is, there your treasure will be also”-which would mean what I love is dependent on how I feel-and if I don’t feel that way, then I can’t make myself love it. I believed that there was nothing I could do to change how I felt. If I felt like doing something, it’d take a lot for me to not do it. When I was younger, I thought that my emotions would always have a huge hold over my actions. That said, while emotions are important, it doesn’t mean that we need to be controlled by them. Our minds can then use the truths revealed by God to align our emotions closer to Him and His truths. If the underlying issue is a sinful attitude, He can show me where I’ve gone wrong, so that I can confess my sin to Him and repent of it.īy digging deeper into what our emotions may be trying to tell us, we can receive God’s comfort or cleansing from sin. If I have been hurt by something, God can bind up my wounds (Psalm 147:3). Processing my emotions with God can help me to apply His truths to myself. And He might show me how I’ve misunderstood the situation or misperceived the intents of others. ![]() He might remind me, as He has in the past, that He has accepted me (Romans 15:7) as His beloved son (1 John 3:1). After I get some idea of what might have led to that feeling of rejection, I’d ask God to comfort and heal me, and to show me His truths about me and the situation. I would seek God’s help to reveal to me any deeper issue that’s causing me to feel like that. But I would ask myself why I’m feeling this way. So if I feel a sense of rejection even when I’m surrounded by loving family and friends, I won’t immediately think that they are actually rejecting me. Even though my emotions may not always tell the truth about reality, they do tell me something about myself. God showed me that while my feelings aren’t always reliable, it doesn’t mean that I ignore them. Just as it isn’t wise to trust the heart without checking back with the mind, it isn’t healthy to always go with the mind without engaging the heart, either.īut how are we to do that when the heart and mind sometimes pull us in different directions? God has taught me a few things that helped me to see that this doesn’t always have to be an ongoing battle, but the heart and the mind can instead have an ongoing conversation. Both our heart and mind must be engaged in loving Him. That is how I’ve come to realize this: it’s not healthy to always act according to my mind without engaging my emotions.Īfter all, Jesus calls us to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength (Luke 10:27). ![]() Although I was obedient outwardly, I felt no joy inwardly. There were times when I willed myself to go to church or cell group, but my heart remained unwilling or even grudging towards God. I’ve tried to keep this in mind, but I’ve found that it can be challenging to act against my own emotions. I was told that I didn’t have to wait until I felt like praying before I started to pray I was to pray because it was in line with God’s will. My feelings did not determine reality, I was reminded, and neither should they be allowed to dictate my actions. I learned that God still loves me even when I don’t feel like He does-just as a chair would still support my weight even when I don’t feel like it would. When I was a much younger Christian, I was taught that feelings were unreliable.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |