CHAPTER 57.
G.o.d Gave Us Emotions to Enjoy Life At times we enjoy our emotions and the support they give us. At other times, when our emotions work against us, we would rather be rid of them! It is important to recognize that G.o.d gave us emotions for a reason. Our job is not to try to rid ourselves of emotions but learn how to manage them.
Our job is not to try to rid ourselves of emotions but learn how to manage them.
For example, G.o.d caused me to understand anger is just an emotion He gave us for a reason like the other emotions He gave us. Like pain, anger warns us something is wrong. Without the capacity to become angry, we wouldn"t recognize mistreatment of ourselves or another. The Bible does not teach that we are never to feel anger. Instead it teaches us when we do become angry, we are not to sin, but rather we are to manage or control our anger in the proper way: "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath" (Ephesians 4:26 KJV).
There was a time when G.o.d gave me a revelation about the truth of that scripture. One day as I was about to leave home to go preach, I became angry with my husband. Guilt and condemnation came over me. I thought, Joyce, how can you go out and preach to others after getting angry like that this morning? Of course, I was still angry and the question really bothered me. As I began to meditate on it, the Lord revealed to me the truth of the above verse in Ephesians which says to be angry and sin not. He let me know that feeling anger is not a sin, but acting on it improperly or not being willing to let it go is sin.
Problems with anger, as with our other emotions, come when Satan tries to use and abuse our anger to lead us into sin. Many times people come to me for counseling, saying, "I have this deep-seated anger inside me." This type of anger is often a wound left over from childhood hurts. In that case, the answer is not merely to get rid of the anger, but to get at the root of what caused it in the first place.
It is not right to go around feeling angry all the time, any more than it is right to go around feeling pain all the time. Many Christians have the false idea they are never to become angry. When they become angry, they condemn themselves for even feeling angry. No matter how hard we try, we will always have to deal with the emotion of anger.
Many people who struggle with controlling the anger they feel rising are surprised to hear it is actually possible to learn how to control their emotions. We need to learn how to start dealing with them instead of simply venting or repressing and consequently feeling guilty and condemned because of them. Here is another example you might relate to. Imagine for a moment that you are looking through a magazine or a catalog and you spot a photograph of an attractive person of the opposite s.e.x. Suddenly you feel a s.e.xual emotion. Does this mean you are perverted and have something desperately wrong with you? Does it mean you are not really saved-that you don"t truly love G.o.d or your spouse? No, it simply means you are human and subject to all the same emotional feelings and reactions experienced by other human beings. The important thing is how you handle your emotions. Do you keep staring at the photo or do you turn away realizing those feelings should be reserved for your marriage partner only? We all have those feelings but we are to learn, with G.o.d"s help, to keep them focused toward our spouses.
Romans 6:2 tells us that if we are Christians we have died to sin. It does not tell us sin is dead! Sin still initially presents itself in the form of temptation and then it becomes a full-blown problem if we give in to the temptation. I recommend reading the sixth chapter of Romans in its entirety. If you do that, you will see that our instruction is to resist sin in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are not told we will never feel emotions, but we are told to not continue offering our bodies as instruments of sin.
It is important to remember that emotions won"t disappear. They will always be there. We must not deny their existence or feel guilty because of them. Instead we are to channel them in the right direction. We are to deny the flesh the right to rule us, but we are not to deny that it exists.
The message is simple: There is nothing wrong with emotions, as long as they are kept under control. There is a way to manage our destructive emotions so we can use the good emotions in the way G.o.d intends-for example, to move in love and compa.s.sion toward others and to experience great joy in serving G.o.d.
CHAPTER 58.
Negative Emotions Steal Your Energy Do you have any idea how valuable you are? If you suffer from self-doubt or self-hatred, if you abuse your body with bad food or bad habits, even if you simply put yourself at the very bottom of the list of people you do things for, under the kids and spouse and parents and boss and friends, then you do not understand your own value. If you did, you wouldn"t treat yourself that way. You were put on this earth to spread G.o.d"s love, and nothing could be more valuable than that.
You were put on this earth to spread G.o.d"s love, and nothing could be more valuable than that.
Maybe you never learned your own importance. That"s what happened to me. As a child, I was abused and taught that I was the least valuable person on the planet. It took me many years of studying G.o.d"s Word and fellowshipping with Him before I got even an inkling of my own worth.
Or maybe you did know your value when you were younger, but somewhere along the way you forgot it, buried it under a to-do list that clamored louder for your attention than your own soul. If so, then join the club. The degraded value systems in the modern world pummel us with the message that our spirit, soul, and body come last, after money and food and status and stuff. No matter how hard we resist, we all succ.u.mb now and then.
I can"t tell you strongly enough how important it is to reform your value system, to go back to a much older value system-G.o.d"s value system. It applies to all people, and it puts your entire being (body, mind, will, emotions, and spirit) right at the top of G.o.d"s list of important and valuable things. Your entire being plays an important role in G.o.d"s plan; He"s entrusted you with the great responsibility of taking care of it. Only by keeping your spirit, soul, and body in tip-top condition can you truly do G.o.d"s work.
It is important to deal with negative emotions because they steal your energy and can even be the root cause of serious disease. Remember that disease causes disease.
Let me give you an example. One day I was experiencing a lot of guilt over something I did wrong. Although I asked G.o.d to forgive me and actually believed He had, I still felt guilty. My mind was on my past when it should have been on my future. I felt depressed and discouraged. I had a headache, and in general did not feel like doing much of anything. The Holy Spirit began to deal with my att.i.tude. He asked me if I thought my att.i.tude was helping me or His work. He then said, "I want you to get over this because you are no good to Me in this condition." The Holy Spirit"s straightforward way of dealing with me caused me to see that I was wasting my day on negative emotions. I was actually allowing my soul (mind, will, and emotions) to adversely affect my spirit and my body. My spirit felt oppressed and my body ached. We must realize we are complex creatures and every part of us affects the other parts.
CHAPTER 59.
You Can Control Your Emotions I used to wonder, "What is wrong with me, anyway?" Have you ever felt that way? You lie in bed in the morning, making all sorts of wonderful plans about how good you"re going to be that day, but as soon as you are up, you ruin your plans. You deal with a few people, somebody does one little thing you don"t like, and you turn into a totally different human being. I always say I never had any problem getting along with everybody when n.o.body was home. It was when they came home at night that I had a problem!
I could be so spiritual during the day, singing praises to the Lord, "I surrender all . . ." Then my children would maybe drop or spill something, causing me to fly into a rage-a spiritual Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Afterward, I spent the rest of the evening under self-condemnation. The same devil who tempts you to act stupid is the same devil who comes around and condemns you for doing what he told you to do.
Some people say, "Well, I just can"t help it. I lose control." Yes, we can help it. I know we can because we are able to control ourselves around particular people-people we want to impress. I could have been in the middle of the biggest fit in the whole world, but if somebody like my pastor walked up, I straightened up extremely fast and became kind and loving. We"re often like different creatures when we think n.o.body is looking. But what really goes on in your private life shows in your public life, whether or not you know it. G.o.d is called all-seeing and all-knowing, and we"re definitely not putting anything over on Him. Remember G.o.d is watching you all the time. We need to stop thinking we can"t control our emotions and start learning how to deal with and manage them in a G.o.dly way.
Excuses are just reasons stuffed with a lie. We make excuses and thereby deceive ourselves. What we are doing would be wrong for someone else, but we have an excuse for doing it. Are you ready to get rid of your "excuse bag"? I think we all have one and it is stuffed with a variety of excuses for every conceivable situation. If we are grouchy, our excuse is we feel bad or had a tough day at work. If we are selfish, we tell ourselves that if we don"t take care of ourselves then n.o.body will. If we are spending more money than we make, we tell ourselves how wise it is to get the item while it is on sale. I encourage you to ask G.o.d to make you aware of all the excuses you make and start taking responsibility for your actions rather than excusing them.
We need to stop thinking we can"t control our emotions and start learning how to deal with and manage them in a G.o.dly way.
CHAPTER 60.
The Test of Emotionally Trying Times A few years ago, as I was praying, G.o.d revealed to me, "Joyce, I am going to test your emotions." I had never heard of anything like that. Psalm 7:9 says G.o.d establishes the righteous, those upright and in harmony with Him, for Him; He tries the hearts, emotions, and thinking powers. The meaning of "tries" here means purifies. I didn"t know scriptures about G.o.d trying our emotions were even in the Bible.
About six months later I suddenly seemed to become an emotional wreck. I cried for no reason. Everything hurt my feelings. I thought, What is the problem here? What"s going on? Then the Lord reminded me of what He showed me earlier: "I am going to test your emotions." He led me to Psalm 7:9 and Revelation 2:23 and caused me to understand what He was doing was for my good.
No matter who you are, there will be periods of time in which you feel more emotional than usual. You may wake up one morning and feel like breaking down and crying for no reason. That may last a day or a week, or it may last longer. You may think, What is my problem?
During those times you have to be careful, because your feelings will get hurt very easily. The slightest thing will set you off. There were times in my life when I would go to bed praying, feeling as sweet as could be, then wake up the next morning like I had stayed up all night eating nails! I would get up in such a foul mood that if anyone came near me or crossed me, I felt like hitting them on the head!
What should we do when we start feeling that way? First of all, we shouldn"t allow ourselves to fall under condemnation. Secondly, we shouldn"t get confused trying to figure out what is happening. What we should do is simply say, "This is one of those times when my emotions are being tried and with G.o.d"s help I am going to be stable. We cannot always control how we feel, but we are in control of our decisions. Part of growing up in G.o.d is learning how to hold steady in the storms of life.
We cannot always control how we feel, but we are in control of our decisions.
Several years ago my husband and I purchased a fifty-two-year-old house and began remodeling it. Shortly after we began that project I felt in my heart G.o.d wanted me to start praying about learning to be more patient. We cannot learn patience without something to be patient about, and it seemed almost everything with the house started going wrong and there was nothing anyone could do to rush the process.
The remodeling turned into a bigger project than we thought it would be, and we needed to move in, but couldn"t. I became really angry and acted in a way that did not reflect my teachings on emotions! The Bible says in Psalm 94:1213 that blessed is the man whom G.o.d disciplines until he learns to keep himself calm in adversity.
Sometimes G.o.d allows us to go through some trying times so we will have the opportunity to learn how to control our emotions. The Bible says G.o.d will never allow any more to come upon us than we are able to bear (see 1 Corinthians 10:13). G.o.d will test our emotions and help us learn stability because it"s only when we"re stable that we can truly enjoy life and be a good example to other people.
CHAPTER 61.
Be Mentally Prepared I have often heard that after a person goes through a real emotional high, he will usually bottom out with an emotional low. We see this in the life of Elijah the prophet in the book of 1 Kings. One day he was on Mt. Carmel making a fool of the priests of Baal, calling down fire from heaven, at the height of his elation. The next day he was out in the desert sitting under a juniper tree asking G.o.d to let him die because he felt so depressed.
I have noticed when I minister in a series of meetings, I spend everything I have spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. I get so excited when I see what G.o.d is doing to help and minister to people and change their lives through those meetings, through my radio and television broadcasts, and through other outreaches in which we are involved.
But then when I return from something exciting like that to normal, everyday life, I have to exercise discipline not to be dissatisfied with ordinary life. Who wants to go from seeing G.o.d perform miracles one day to doing normal household ch.o.r.es the next?
Sometimes we think, Oh, if I could just stay on this emotional high forever then life would be great. But the truth is if we were constantly doing something emotionally exciting, it would not be long before we wouldn"t appreciate those times. We need to be able to experience and be content with both sides of life. If we are only content during exciting times, it is our circ.u.mstances making us joyful, when it should be G.o.d. The apostle Paul stated that he learned how to be content (satisfied to the point where he was not disturbed) no matter what state he was in. Whether he was abounding or being abased, he remained content (see Philippians 4:1112). Don"t despair if you are not at that place of stability yet. Paul said he learned it and we must do the same thing.
When I came home after those ministry trips, I couldn"t understand what was wrong with me. Then I finally learned that the emotional high I experienced while being involved in the excitement of the conference left me tired physically, mentally, and emotionally and I needed to rest. Like Elijah in the desert I needed to rest and recuperate.
We simply cannot live on an emotional high with everything in our life going exactly the way we want it to. We must have contrast in order to even appreciate the good things we have.