Managing Your Emotions: Instead of Your Emotions Managing You Page 3
In my own life, I have noticed when I minister in a series of meetings, I spend everything I have spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, praying for people and meeting their needs. I get so excited when I see what God is doing through those meetings, my radio and television broadcasts, and other outreaches we are involved in.
But then when I return from something exciting like that to normal, everyday life, it is almost too much to bear. Who wants to go from casting out demons one day to normal household chores the next?
Often we get the idea, “Oh, if I could just stay on this emotional high forever!” But God knows we couldn't stand it. A lot of emotional highs and lows wear us out emotionally as well as mentally and physically.
When I came home after those ministry trips, I couldn't understand what was wrong with me. I would go through the house rebuking Satan, when the only thing wrong was that I was tired — physically, mentally, and emotionally drained. Like Elijah in the desert, I didn't need to fight the enemy, I needed to rest and recuperate.
When you get like that, don't do like Elijah and get down on yourself. Don't start thinking what a miserable person you are. Don't moan and groan about how happy you were yesterday but how terrible you feel today. Don't start complaining to the Lord about how worthless you feel.
Do you know what I do when I get like that? I say “Lord, I'm feeling down right now, so I'm going to have to just rest and build myself back up again. I'm going to spend time with You, Lord, and let You strengthen me.”
Manic Depression
The psychological term used to describe people who go from one emotional extreme to another is “manic depressive.”
A young woman in one of our meetings once told me that her husband was a manic depressive. She said that for three months he would be on an emotional high and be really creative. In his business, he would buy and sell, invest large sums of money, and be tremendously successful. When he came down from that emotional high, he would go into deep depression that might last for as long as six months!
Medical science at one time only tried to bring up the emotional lows for people with manic depression. When they were enjoying an emotional high, nothing was done for them. According to an article I recently read, it has now been discovered that the attempt must be made to bring down the extreme highs. Health experts are learning that balance is the key.
We have always applauded high emotions and been critical of lows. Actually both extreme ends are wrong.
Most of us will never have problems with manic depression, but we can learn a principle from how they are treated, and we can understand that it isn't good enough to simply resist depression, we must also resist the temptation to get so emotionally high that it leaves us exhausted and open prey for the devil.
None of us can live on the mountaintop all the time. There are going to be days when we are up and days when we feel down. Emotions are fickle, and they fluctuate frequently for no apparent reason. What we need to learn is how to manage both ends of the extreme.
One thing that is important for stable emotional health is honesty — with self and with others. People who are close to us can sense when we are struggling emotionally. I have found it is best for me and my family if I am honest with them about what is going on with me. At those times when I have felt myself sliding toward anger, depression, or any negative emotion, I have told my family, “My emotions are going haywire today, so if I'm quiet, just don't pay any attention to me for a while.”
We must remember that what we hide still has power over us, but when we bring things out in the open, they begin losing their grip immediately. John 8:32 teaches us that the truth will make us free. James 5:16 encourages us to confess our faults to one another so that we may be healed and restored to a spiritual tone of mind and heart.
I found that if I tried to protect my spiritual reputation by pretending that nothing was wrong with me, all it did was bring confusion to my entire family. They might begin to imagine that I was angry with them for some reason. Then they would become upset, trying to reason out what they might have done to upset me. We were all a lot better off if I simply told the truth.
I tried to learn to be quiet during those times.
We have a tendency to say things when we are emotionally upset that we regret later. We have a responsibility to our family members and others with whom we spend a lot of time to avoid keeping them guessing about what's going on with us.
Here is a good example: One of the members of our road team who is normally very talkative and bubbly suddenly became very quiet and almost withdrawn. Several of the other team members noticed it and came to Dave and me saying, “What's wrong with_____?” They thought she was angry about something or with someone on the travel crew.
When I spoke with her, she was simply having some health problems. She had recently gone for some medical tests and was anxiously awaiting the results. She said, “I always get quiet and just pray when I'm dealing with something like this.”
I told her that getting quiet and praying was the thing to do, but that it might be good the next time to just mention to everyone that she was dealing with something personal and not to think anything about it if she seemed quiet. By doing so, we can prevent the devil from placing negative things in other people's imaginations about the situation.
People respect us if we are open and straightforward. I learned this truth with my family, and it saved all of us a lot of anxiety.
Remember that the devil will use our emotions to bring us under guilt and condemnation, but God often uses them to test or try us so that we come forth from our emotional upheavals stronger and better able to control them than ever before.
The trick is to learn not to give in or cater to emotions. I spent many years being up and down emotionally, but now I am very stable. God helps us as we continue trusting Him and following the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
The Price for Catering to Emotions
So then those who are living the life of the flesh [catering to the appetites and impulses of their carnal nature] cannot please or satisfy God, or be acceptable to Him. Romans 8:8
The Amplified Bible tells us that to live by the flesh is to cater to the appetites and impulses of the carnal or fleshly nature.
Now we have all been at banquets and other events which were catered. It is always fun to be catered to, to have our wants and needs met immediately and fully by someone else. But there is always a price to be paid for that kind of service.
The same is true in the area of emotions. There is a price we must pay for falling into the position of catering to the desires and demands of our emotions — what the Bible calls our “flesh.”
Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever]. Romans 8:6
This means that if you and I follow the dictates and demands of our flesh — our unbridled emotions — we will have a price to pay. Why?
… because the mind of the flesh [with its carnal thoughts and purposes] is hostile to God, for it does not submit itself to God's Law; indeed it cannot. Romans 8:7
Part of the price we must pay for catering to our emotions is not being able to live the Spirit-filled life:
For those who are according to the flesh and are controlled by its unholy desires set their minds on and pursue those things which gratify the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit and are controlled by the desires of the Spirit set their minds on and seek those things which gratify the [Holy] Spirit. Romans 8:5
The Bible clearly teaches that the flesh is opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit is opposed to the flesh. They are continually antagonistic to each other. This means that we cannot be led by our emotions and still be led by the Holy Spirit, so we have to make a choice.
Now when the Bible says that those who cater to their emotions cannot please o
r satisfy God or be acceptable to Him, it does not mean that God doesn't love them.
You and I can be in a terrible emotional mess and still be loved by our heavenly Father. The fact that we are having emotional problems does not mean we are not going to heaven. It just means God is not pleased with our lifestyle. Why? Because it puts Him in a position in which He cannot do for us what He would like to do.
As I have mentioned previously, we all want our children to be blessed and to share in our inheritance. But if one of our children chooses to follow a lifestyle of unbridled sensuality, we will not be inclined to entrust our inheritance to him because we know he will just squander and waste it on “riotous living,” fulfilling the “lust of the flesh.” When the Apostle Paul says God is not pleased with those who live by the flesh rather than by His Spirit, I believe Paul means they cannot be trusted with God's best.
Ordinary Impulses
For you are still [unspiritual, having the nature] of the flesh [under the control of ordinary impulses]. For as long as [there are] envying and jealousy and wrangling and factions among you, are you not unspiritual and of the flesh, behaving yourselves after a human standard and like mere (unchanged) men? 1 Corinthians 3:3
In his letter to the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul called the Corinthians unspiritual because they were living not by the Spirit of God but by their own human nature, which was under the control of “ordinary impulses.”
Notice Paul did not say these people were unspiritual because they had ordinary impulses, but because they were under the control of ordinary impulses. Instead of controlling their impulses, they were allowing their impulses to control them.
I define impulse as a sudden urge that compels a person to take action, or an inherent, irrational tendency. I think an impulsive person is one who tends to act on emotion rather than on logic or wisdom.
We often speak of “impulse buying,” which, of course, refers to buying something without really giving careful thought to the purchase.
Paul says that being impulsive, being led by ordinary impulses rather than by the Spirit of God, leads to all kinds of evils such as jealousy, envy, strife — in short, all the things that cause divisions and factions among us.
Emotions as the Enemy
Watchman Nee made two important statements about emotions in his book, Spiritual Man: 1) “Emotion may be denominated the most formidable enemy to the life of a spiritual Christian,” and 2) “He therefore who lives by emotion lives without principle.”7
What he was saying was the same thing Paul is saying in this passage. We cannot be spiritual — that is, walk in the Spirit — and be led by emotions.
Emotions will not go away, but we can learn to manage them. We all have emotions, and we must deal with them, but we cannot trust them! Why? Because emotions are our greatest enemy. More than anything, Satan uses our emotions against us to keep us from walking in the Spirit.
We know the mind is the battlefield — the place where the battle is waged between the Spirit and the soul. I have read that when emotion pulsates, the mind becomes deceived, and conscience is denied its standard of judgment.
People often ask me, “How can I know for sure whether I'm hearing from God or from my emotions?”
I believe the answer is to learn to wait. Emotions urge us toward haste. They tell us that we have to do something, and we must do it right now! But godly wisdom tells us to wait until we have a clear picture of what it is we are to do and when we are to do it.
What we all need to do is develop the capacity to back away and view our situation from God's perspective. We need to be able to make decisions based on what we know rather than on what we feel.
Many times we say, “Well, I feel that God wants me to do this or that.” In reality what we are saying is we sense in our spirit that the Lord is telling us to do or not do something. We are not talking about operating by our own emotions, but by what we perceive spiritually to be the will of God for us in that situation.
Whenever we are faced with a decision, we need to ask ourselves: “Am I making this decision according to my feelings or according to the will of God?”
Let me give you an example from my own personal life.
Emotional Discernment
For we walk by faith [we regulate our lives and conduct ourselves by our conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, with trust and holy fervor; thus we walk] not by sight or appearance. 2 Corinthians 5:7
My husband Dave and I have a certain way we handle our money. I get an allowance each week, and so does he. I usually save my money to buy clothes and other things I want or need.
One time I had about $375 saved to buy a good watch, which I had to do about once a year since I have a lot of acid in my skin. I wanted to buy a good, 14-karat gold watch, so the band would not discolor.
Because I had been shopping for a watch for a while and discovered that the type I wanted would cost about eight or nine hundred dollars, I was saving my money toward that goal.
One day Dave and I were in the mall and happened to stop at a jewelry store where I saw a watch that was only gold-plated but was really very pretty. It matched my ring and seemed to be just what I was looking for. It fit my arm perfectly so it wouldn't have had to have been cut down. Not only that, but the clerk offered to mark it down from $395 to $316. So my emotions said, “YES! That's exactly what I want!”
But then my husband said, “Well, now, you know, it's not 14-karat gold.”
So I asked the clerk, “How long do you think the gold-plating will last?”
“Well, it could last from five to ten years,” he said, “depending on how much acid you have in your skin.”
I turned to Dave and said. “Oh, my. I really like that watch. What should I do?”
“It's your money,” he answered.
“I'll tell you what I'm going to do,” I told the clerk. “You hold it for me for half an hour. I'm going to walk around the mall for a bit. If I want the watch, I'll come back within thirty minutes.”
So Dave and I walked around the mall for a while. As we did so, we passed a dress shop. Because I needed a couple of new outfits, I went in and found a really nice suit. I tried it on, and it fit perfectly. I loved it.
“That's a nice suit,” Dave said. “You really ought to get it.”
I looked at the price tag and saw that it read $279. “No wonder it looks so good on me,” I replied. But I really wanted that suit!
After a while I put the suit back in the rack.
“Aren't you going to buy it?” David asked.
“No,” I answered. “I'm not going to buy it either. I'm going to think about it.”
Actually there were three things I wanted. I wanted the watch, I wanted the suit, and I wanted not to be broke. I wanted to have some money on hand to buy little things I needed from time to time and to be able to do some things I enjoyed like taking my kids out for lunch now and then.
What did I do? I applied wisdom. I decided to wait. The watch would have taken all of my savings and would still not have been what I really needed. The suit was beautiful, but it also would have taken most of my savings. Since it was long-sleeved, I wouldn't have been able to wear it until the next fall. It would have hung in my closet for a long time.
The best thing, I decided, was to keep my money and wait until I was sure what I wanted most.
I really learned a lesson from that experience. I had peace about my decision. As much as I would have enjoyed either the watch or the suit, I knew I had done the right thing.
It turned out that later on my husband bought me both the watch and the suit — plus a ring to match! It all worked out beautifully because I was willing to listen to reason and apply wisdom rather than being controlled by my emotions.
If we are willing to learn to control our emotions, God will bless us.
I am not saying that if you will delay every decision, someone else will make it for you and you will get everything you w
ant and more. I am saying that usually the wisest course is: when in doubt, don't!
When faced with any difficult decision, wait until you have a clear answer before taking a step that you may regret. Emotions are wonderful, but they must not be allowed to take precedence over wisdom and knowledge. Remember: control your emotions, don't let them control you.
2
Healing of Damaged Emotions, Part 1
Healing of emotional wounds is a process, not something that takes place all at once or overnight. It requires an investment of time and diligent obedience to God's commands.
I realize from my own experience that it often seems that no progress is being made at all. You may feel you have so many problems you are getting absolutely nowhere.
But you are!
You have to keep in mind that even though you have a long way to go, you have also come a long way. The solution is to thank God for the progress you have made thus far and to trust Him to lead you on to eventual victory — one step at a time.
One Step at a Time
In my oral presentations on this subject I like to hold up several different-colored shoestrings tied together in a knot. I tell my audience, “This is you when you first start the process of transformation with God. You're all knotted up. Each knot represents a different problem in your life. Untangling those knots and straightening out those problems is going to take a bit of time and effort, so don't get discouraged if it doesn't happen all at once.”
All of us have many of the same types of problems, but God doesn't deal with all of them at the same time or all of us in the same way. The Lord may be dealing with one person about his mouth, somebody else about his selfishness, and someone else about his anger or bitterness.