Freedom In Christ #8

Handling Emotions Well

This, more than any of the other sessions has highlighted how I have failed to grasp the earlier principle, from session 3, of choosing to believe the truth.

Do you remember the flow chart from that session (see my blog Freedom in Christ #3)

Truth

 

Belief

 

Behaviour

 

Feelings

 

 

Well, this session examines what happens if you invert this chart. If you live life led by your feelings this directly impacts on your behaviour and your belief. Your view of reality is shaped by the former.

 

 

A phrase that jumped out at me from that session, which, in the style of the course, is repeated often is; 'If what you believe does not reflect the truth, then what you feel will not reflect reality.

 

I often find myself primarily led by my feelings. My view of what is really going on is often dictated by my emotional reaction to it. And sometimes my emotional state is a factor even before anything happens. In the session from last Sunday it was stated that our feelings are like a barometer. They are to our soul what pain is to the body. But they can't always be trusted. As I just stated in that quote, what you feel does not always reflect reality.

 

A few weeks back I had a prime example of this. I was in a bit of a slump, mainly because I felt that I was losing a grip on some of these lessons that I felt I had been learning. It seems that being free requires hard work! And so on the morning in question I gave myself a bit of a kick up the bum, reminding myself that I was 'Significant, Accepted and Secure' and as a result, something spiritual seemed to shift and I felt elated. Now the reality is that I wouldn't have been any more significant, accepted or secure than I was when I wasn't feeling it, but my perception had changed and the world seemed brighter, the grass so much greener.

 

And then I read a message on facebook that rocked me. A friend of mine from Australia had sent out a personal message, which I read, stating that her daughter had gone missing. And would I/we pray for her safe return. I was devastated by this. I felt so bad for my friend and was praying constantly through the day, unable to think about anything else. I did not understand how God could do such a trivial thing as 'making me feel better' and simultaneously allow this little girl to go missing. Messages came back throughout the day to say that there had been no news. As I went to sleep all I could think about was this poor little girl and my poor friend, worried to death for her daughter. I got others to pray for her but all the time my feelings towards God were growing colder. I was miffed, at best, angry at worst.

My friend posted a picture of a missing girl on facebook, sometime the next day. It wasn't her daughter and I wondered if she had found this image whilst looking for her daughter and decided to post it out of solidarity. But that didn't seem right. I checked and reread her original message. The message read "To my praying friends" and on the next line 'My friends daughter has gone missing'.

My eye had filtered out the word 'friends' because it lay in the same position as the word 'friends' above it!

 

So I had been worried about a situation that didn't even exist. Initially I felt relieved for all the grief and angst I had felt on behalf of my friend. and then just as quickly, guilt at the relief I felt because this actually was someone's daughter. And so I redoubled my prayer efforts.

 

Miraculously the daughter was found, unharmed and healthy.

So my feelings had caused me to go into a tailspin based on  a set of circumstances that were not even reality. I felt like such a fool to lose faith in God so easily, a God who loved me even enough to let me know my significance in the midst of my self doubt and to answer the prayers of faithful friends for this daughter. He had not changed, like the shifting shadows. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever. It does not mean that things that we cant understand never happen. Inevitably they do. But God is unchanged throughout. His love doesn't waver. Had I really been choosing to believe the truth over my feelings of despair, that whole episode could have been handled entirely differently.

 

 

There is a great deal more to this session, but I think my story really illustrates the fallibility of being led by our feelings and the reliability of Gods truth, whatever the circumstances and however they appear. Without supressing our feelings or being uncontrollably and explosively led by them, we need to honestly acknowledge them before God and make a conscious decision to follow the truth.

Let me finish with a quote from the book;

 

You don't feel your way into good behaviour. You behave your way into good feelings. We start by choosing to believe the truth, which works itself out in our behaviour. This then over time leads to a change in our feelings.