Have you ever wondered, “Now where did that feeling come from?” Why am I angry, depressed, anxious, frustrated, on the verge of tears, etc.? These and many other feelings are an indicator to us. We would be wise to take notice of them and consider what is causing these emotions. The best place to help us understand this is God’s Word. What does God’s Word say?
“As a man thinks in his heart so is he.”
(Proverbs 23:7)
When we have various emotions, it is important to ask ourselves a few questions.
“What are you thinking?”
“What are you wanting?”
Our emotions do not come from a vacuum. They do not come from nowhere. They come from our thinking. We may be experiencing emotions and not even realize what is causing these emotions. They came from our thinking.
What happens according to Proverbs 23:7 is we begin to think a certain way and we develop habits of reacting. We look at situations and think:
This isn’t fair.
Why did this happen to me?
I deserve better than this.
I can’t handle this.
Where is God in all of this?
This did not happen how I wanted it to happen.
As we think these things, we begin to respond with emotions such as anger, depression, anxiety, fear, frustration, annoyance, etc.
Every circumstance in life that happens to us never takes God by surprise. When we fail to trust Him, we begin to think the above thoughts, and then the emotions follow.
Here is the struggle we have, we have these feelings and too often we begin to act on them. We all have heard the phrases, “if it feels good, do it.” Or “do whatever makes you happy.”
What happens when what makes us feel good ends up feeling bad. What happens when what made you happy yesterday, makes you unhappy today. Do you see the challenge with following our emotions? They are always changing. Our emotions oftentimes are not speaking truth to us.
So what do we do? God has given us emotions for a reason. What is the purpose of them? Part of the purpose is to give us a key to our thoughts.
So what are your emotions telling you about your thoughts?
Do our thoughts line up with Scripture? I would say about myself that so often my thoughts do not line up with Scripture. It is something I need to work on daily, even minute by minute.
Many times we follow our emotions thinking that the actions that are produced by our emotions will produce the results that we are desiring. We want something, our emotions follow suit and then we act in whatever way necessary to get what we want. This then develops a pattern.
Here’s an example. We are driving down a 2 lane road and we come upon a sweet elderly couple taking a Sunday afternoon drive on Monday morning. You are already running late to that appointment that you need to get to. There are so many cars coming the other way, you can’t pass the sweet elderly couple. What emotions begin to be felt? Anger, fear, frustration, anxiety, etc. How are you thinking? Won’t this couple drive faster? I need to get to my appointment or I am going to lose this opportunity. If I lose this opportunity, I won’t be able to pay my bills. So then what actions begin to follow? You might start honking. You start looking at your phone while you drive trying to find a different way- which could cause an accident.
This is an easy scenario to pick on this poor person, but it happens in our everyday lives. We want something and when we don’t get what we think we should get, we begin to experience emotions and so often these emotions produce sinful behavior.
So what is the solution?
Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
This renewal of our minds needs to be a daily and sometimes even a minute by minute thing. As we are tested, we will then see what is really in our hearts. We will see what we are really thinking.
So when a situation comes into your life and you react, ask yourself “what am I thinking, what am I wanting?” This will help you to understand why you are experiencing the emotions you are having.
