We can feel a range of different emotions on any given day. We could start our day optimistic and full of hope only to have that optimism stifled by a word from someone along our way. Suddenly all that positive passion is positively ruined and we find ourselves dwelling in anger of what was said. Tack on a few other things that don’t go as planned, perhaps a bad phone call, a flat tire, or something as simple as a pass by the mirror and now we find ourselves in a place of sadness and discouragement.
Our emotions fluctuate, for some much more often than others, and that’s okay. However, God did not create us to be led by these feelings, though he did intend for us to experience them.
Without the deep pain of despair we could not appreciate the joy that deliverance and redemption has to offer. The pain is crucial to our development. Cliché as you have it, the hard times in life are opportunities to make us stronger. Strength is also subjective, it too fluctuates throughout our life; so does our perception of strength.
Is a person strong when they battle a life threatening disease?
Is a person strong when they leave an abusive relationship?
Is a person strong when they’ve reached the latter years of life, enduring through the loneliness?
Is a person strong when they get out of bed in the morning?
Thousands of times we get out of bed to start our day not thinking a thing of it. Then something happens that makes you never want to get out of bed again; but still you rise. I’d say that takes true strength. In life, sometimes you have to start over, sometimes, strength shows up in ways you never thought it to before.
As we navigate through the many seasons of life, what is God saying to us?
22 Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
Psalm 55:22
His word speaks of sustainment, that we, the children of God would not be moved. This passage of scripture is like a sail on a sailboat, the wheel of a car, the herder of a flock. Instead of being driven by the uncontainable sea, at the mercy of a car in drive or a wandering flock, we have been given the blessing of His sustainment, his guidance and love.
5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6
When we trust in the Lord, when we choose to rather lean on Him instead of our own understanding, we are able to be led by the solidity of His word, the unwavering fortitude of His strength, and rely on his steadfastness in every season of life.
Made to feel
God gave us our emotions, He created us to feel and experience them. Being made in His image we reflect Him (Genesis 1:27). How amazing that even in our anger and in our sadness we are a reflection of God’s character and image. That being said God is holy, His nature is holy, His manner of expression is holy. Though God made us to feel He does not want us to be ruled by our feelings but rather to be governed by the source of them. God wills for us to be led not by the intensity of our emotions but to bring them under the subjection of His holy nature that we the children of God are partakers of.
3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2 Peter 1:3-4
It is through his divine power that we can reject our fleshly nature and be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). It is by our reliance on Him and His sovereignty that we can experience these God-given emotions and not be ruled by them but be ruled by God.
The Spirit vs. The Flesh
So how does one bring themselves and all their emotions under subjection? Due to our creation are we then naturally inclined to holy expression like our creator? How do we express ourselves in a holy way as partakers of His divine nature?
Let us first take a look at the Bible, even Apostle Paul expressed his grievances of the inward struggle that is his fleshly desires vs. the spirit.
22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Romans 7:22-25
The truth is that just like Paul we are not naturally inclined to holy expression but to sin (Psalm 51:5). There is a continual war inwardly between our sinful nature that has been begotten us since the fall of man (Romans 5:12) and our new inheritance through Christ Jesus (1 Peter 1:3-6). Despite this inward struggle, this spiritual tug-o-war concerning the way we govern ourselves; we have this hope!
Though we are born into sin, there is a heavenly Father who loves us, who has filled us with His spirit that intercedes on our behalf (Romans 8:24-28). Through again, our reliance on God and the crucifixion of our flesh and it’s desires we journey in our pursuit to align with God’s holy nature. What a beautiful anomaly that we are born into sin yet created in God’s image. So in our daily life we ought to strive to see this reflection of God in ourselves. We must deny our sinful nature and choose to serve Christ, it is by this that we polish the looking glass that is the reflection of Christ in us. The more we seek to align ourselves with God and His nature instead of our own the more we learn to walk in this holy expression and resemble our creator.
“It is by our reliance on God and His sovereignty that we can experience these God-given emotions and not be ruled by them but be ruled by God.“
Your Feelings Will Fail You—but God Never Will
Jesus is our mediator between us and the Father, He is that gift of mercy that bridges the gap that we could not cross on our own. Jesus is still that bridge today. Your feelings will fail you but God will never fail you. In Christ we can:
feel anger without falling into sin (Ephesians 4:26)
feel sadness without being consumed (Lamentations 3:22-23)
feel joy that isn’t circumstantial (Romans 5:3-5)
feel and express love healthily and biblically (1 Corinthians 13)
It goes on and on, and in Him our mourning is turned to dancing, our doubt is turned to faith, our fear and anxiety replaced by the peace of God.
“We must deny our sinful nature and choose to serve Christ, it is by this that we polish the looking glass that is the reflection of Christ in us.”
When we allow our feelings to dictate us it will only lead us to sin and destruction. However, when we yield our feelings to God and pursuit righteousness we will see God’s holy nature reflected in our lives and oh how beautiful it is.