Keeping Our Emotions in Check

I heard a wonderful Christian teacher say recently that one of the greatest battles for us is keeping our emotions in check and not letting them dictate our lives. For many people, if something or someone upsets them in the morning, they allow this to ruin their whole day and possibly their entire week. One of the reasons that God desires us to read and study His Word is because it helps us to gain internal strength so that we are not rocked by people, or the situations and circumstances they cause. The psalmist, David, said in Psalm 119:105(NKJV), “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” God’s Word is light and life to us. We need it desperately because we are often blinded by our emotions, and it causes us to stumble through life and not see the wonderful opportunities God has placed before us.

To understand the destructiveness of allowing our emotions to be in the driver’s seat of our lives, we need to go back to the very beginning. In the Old Testament Book of Genesis, God shares with us the creation of the world, as well as the creation of humanity. He created Adam and Eve, and they walked and talked with Him daily through His Holy Spirit. Genesis 2:25(NLT) tells us, “Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.” Nakedness, of course, is being nude or without clothing. Everything in the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve lived was perfect and full of God’s glory, even the ground they walked on. Nothing about their environment was harmful, so there was no need for clothes.

God took care of all their needs. They lacked nothing, and actually had no sense of this word we know as ‘lack’. We also know from Genesis 2:25 that they had no shame. You and I automatically equate nudity with being exposed, and we equate being exposed with shame. In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve with no sense of guilt or condemnation. They were not ashamed because they didn’t have sin; and therefore, had nothing to be ashamed about. They felt deserving of the opportunity, privilege, and honor of communing with God. They were self-assured and confident, and fellowshipped with Him from a place and space of wholeness.

Fear and shame are very close relatives. They work together and both are from the kingdom of darkness. Disobedience would open the door to them, and these two dark relatives will completely alter a person’s trajectory in life. Adam and Eve were given a direct commandment by Heavenly Father. He did not restrict the parameters of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden, but He commanded them not to eat of its fruit. The liar that he is, the devil tempted them, and they acted on the doubt he planted in their minds. Sin transported them out of the territory of God’s goodness and into the territory of darkness. They bowed to the devil and the dominion and authority God has given them was transferred to the custody of satan. Adam and Eve lost everything, most tragically, their connection to God.

Fast forward from Genesis 2:25 to Genesis 3:10(NLT), and we see the stark and dark decline. God called out to Adam and inquired of his whereabouts. Of course, God knew Adam’s physical location, but his spiritual location has changed completely. He had lost his Holy Spirit connection to God and was then without the covering of goodness he always had. Adam replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.” Fear has to be covered with something, and Adam tried to use shame for the job. Sin brought fear and shame into our minds and hearts and made us slaves of satan. We needed rescuing in a bad sort of way, and God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to do it.

The absence of our faith in God’s goodness gave way to all sorts of negative feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, but Jesus Christ purchased our freedom back. Colossians 1:13(NLT) tells us, “For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son.” Because of what God accomplished through our Big Brother, we now live in a spiritual Kingdom where Jesus Christ is Lord! Romans 6:22 tells us that we are now free from the power of sin and all its dreadful cousins.

Emotions should never be allowed to have lordship in our lives. Our continuous and extremely necessary job is to keep them in check. The easiest thing to do in life is to let them lead, to get angry and upset when someone cuts us off in traffic or does something to annoy us. It’s typical for us to spend a good deal of time mourning over relationships with folks that were never meant to be a part of our destinies. We continue to cry and be sad because people chose to walk a separate path, but we need to get a grip so we can continue to press forward and upward. God commands us to have faith and be courageous. In Philippians 4:8 (MSG), He tells us to fill our minds by meditating on things that are “true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.” We must have faith that God will forever have our backs, and any emotion or thought that doesn’t support this truth in faith is not worth having.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Keeping Our Emotions in Check” by Alexandra Copeland. Copyright©2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.