Managing Your Emotions: Instead of Your Emotions Managing You

by Joyce Meyer

  At one point I told him, “I want you to know that I am through being abused by you. You have controlled me for a long time, but no longer. I love you as someone for whom Jesus died, and I am willing to go forward with our relationship, but until you acknowledge your sins against me and repent of them, it is impossible for us to have a proper relationship.”

  Confronting him in this manner was something I was led to do by the Spirit of God, and it was part of my own healing process.

  I had been controlled by a spirit of fear where this person was concerned for many years, and it was time to confront that fear.

  Does all this mean that I was filled with bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness? No, it just means that I was able to distinguish between my forgiveness and my feelings. I forgave him because I love God and want to do what He tells me to do. It took a long time for my feelings to catch up with my decision because of the depth of the wound, but I had done my part. I had acted on the Word of God and made the decision to forgive. Restoration was not possible yet, but forgiveness was.

  If we do what we can do, God will always do what we cannot do. I could make a decision to obey God, but I could not change how I felt. God did that for me as time went by.

  Healing takes time!

  We can cleanse and disinfect the wound. We can bandage it and tend it. But we cannot actually heal it. Jesus is the Healer.

  There is a good conclusion to my story! Later God moved in a mighty way to bring deliverance and healing to this relationship. The Lord had been working behind the scenes, and one day the person who had abused me told me he was sorry that what he had done had hurt me. He said that he never intended to hurt me and that although he had known that what he was doing was wrong, he had never really understood how badly it would affect me.

  At the time I had already forgiven him from my heart, but this admission of wrongdoing on his part and his willingness to try to do right opened the door for the beginning of restoration in the relationship. It has been slow and not always comfortable, but at least we have been progressively moving forward.

  I have included this example from my own life to help you realize that just because you will to forgive does not mean that you no longer have any feelings. You may hurt for a long time. But the important thing is not to allow the enemy to convince you that just because your feelings are wounded, you have not done your part before God.

  Remember, decide to forgive, pray for your enemies, bless and do not curse them. Be good to those who have mistreated you because you overcome evil with good (see Rom. 12:21). And wait for God to take care of your feelings.

  With the help of God we can learn to manage our emotions even though they may be tender and hurting. With the power of the Holy Spirit helping us, we can learn not to mistreat those who have hurt us. We can avoid saying unkind things about them to others. We can pray for them. We can wait for God's recompense and see His glory manifested in our lives by choosing to do things His way!

  5

  Mood Swings

  The ups and downs in our emotions is one of the major tools Satan uses to steal our joy and destroy our effectiveness as witnesses for Christ. We need to learn to become stable, solid, steadfast, persevering, determined believers.

  As we noted in the very beginning of this book, none of us is ever going to be totally rid of emotions. But thank God we can learn to manage those emotions. We can learn to control our emotions and not let them control us.

  Life is no fun when it is controlled by feelings, because feelings change from day to day, hour to hour, even moment to moment. Feelings cannot be trusted, not only because they change so often, but because they also lie.

  The devil loves to use our feelings to influence us because he knows we are “soulish” creatures. Too often we allow ourselves to be guided by our soul — our mind, will, and emotions — rather than by the Spirit of Truth.

  We cannot stop the enemy from placing negative thoughts in our mind, but we don't have to dwell on those thoughts. Because we have a will, we can choose to refuse them. In the same way, we cannot stop Satan from playing on our emotions, but we can use that same will to refuse to give in to our emotions.

  The fact is that, as followers of Christ, we must live by truth and wisdom, not by feelings and emotions.

  Reasoning With Self

  In order to live by truth and wisdom, sometimes we have to reason with ourselves.

  When strange feelings threaten to overwhelm us, we need to stop and take control of our thoughts and feelings. One way we do that is by talking to ourselves either silently or out loud.

  I do that all the time.

  There was a time in my life when I did not resist negative feelings and, as a result, I had a very unstable, miserable life.

  Now when feelings of loneliness begin to rise up within me to cause me fear and misery, I stop and say to myself: “Joyce Meyer, knock it off! You may feel lonely, but you are not lonely. With all the people God has placed in your life to love and care for you, you can't possibly be lonely.”

  So even though I may occasionally feel lonely, I don't allow my feelings to dictate to me and spoil my life. That is part of what is called emotional maturity.

  Emotional Maturity

  You may be in a crowd of people and feel everybody is talking about you, but that doesn't mean they are.

  You may feel nobody understands you, but that doesn't mean they don't.

  You may feel you are misunderstood, unappreciated, or even mistreated, but that doesn't mean it is true.

  Satan wants us to listen to our feelings which are changeable and unreliable rather than listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit Who always speaks the truth. For that reason we need to make emotional maturity our goal. And for the believer, the first step to emotional maturity is learning to listen to the Spirit rather than the soul.

  If we want to be mature, disciplined, Spirit-controlled people, we must be determined to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. It takes a constant act of the will to choose to do things God's way rather than our way.

  Like a Rock

  And they all drank the same spiritual (supernaturally given) drink. For they drank from a spiritual Rock which followed them [produced by the sole power of God Himself without natural instrumentality], and the Rock was Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:4

  My husband has always been very stable emotionally. In fact, he reminds me of a rock, which is one of the names of Jesus.

  One way of explaining the nature of Jesus would be to say that He has emotional maturity. Part of that maturity is stability, being unchanging.

  The writer of the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ (the Messiah) is [always] the same, yesterday, today, [yes] and forever (to the ages) (Heb. 13:8).

  Do you really believe that Jesus allowed Himself to be moved or led around by His emotions, as we so often do? Of course not. We know that He was led by the Spirit, not by feelings, though we have seen that He was subject to all the same feelings you and I experience in our daily lives.

  In that sense, Dave has always been much more like Jesus than I have. Dave is as stable and unchanging as a rock. It is comfortable to live with somebody like that because you always know what to expect.

  To tell the truth, I used to get aggravated with Dave at times because he never got excited or upset about anything. It was just part of his phlegmatic personality not to show much emotion. On the other hand, I more than made up for it by constantly going from one extreme to the other, up and down like a roller coaster.

  Do you know when my emotional roller coaster finally began to level off? It started when I began to put my foot down and make a determined decision that with the help of the Holy Spirit I was not going to be that way anymore.

  Until I decided I was through living by my feelings, I was in bondage to my emotions. I would be up one day, laughing and feeling good, then down the next, weeping and crying and feeling sorry for myself. The following day I would bounce back for a while, only
to turn around and fall right back into misery. I reached the point of not wanting to have to face any type of change in my life because I knew it would bring on all kinds of emotional problems I was not prepared to handle. I then realized that what I needed was emotional maturity and stability.

  Dave provided an excellent example of what that was, and observing him made me desire the same emotional maturity and stability I saw him display.

  We all need to be stable.

  Too often we make prosperity or success or something else our goal when our first objective should be emotional maturity. Although we cannot achieve that maturity and stability on our own, God will help us if we truly desire change.

  Your God Is Mighty

  The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty... Zephaniah 3:17 kjv

  In the Old Testament, Elisha attached himself to the prophet Elijah and became his follower and disciple because he wanted to be strong in the Lord like his master.

  If you have an emotional problem, then you need to stop associating with people who are worse off than you are. Instead, you need to spend time with those who are spiritually and emotionally mature.

  I knew that I might never be as emotionally strong and stable as Dave because we are of two totally different personality types. But I was determined I was going to come to the place of not being tormented and controlled by my emotions.

  The Scriptures tell us that the Lord our God Who resides within each of us is “mighty.” Mighty to do what? One way He is “mighty” in us is to help us overcome our emotions and be led by His unchangeable Word and Spirit and not by our unstable feelings and emotions.

  Your God is able. Why not trust Him to help you develop the same kind of emotional maturity and stability that marked the life of His own Son, Jesus Christ, our hope of glory?

  Christ: the Hope of Glory

  … God was pleased to make known how great for the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ within and among you, the Hope of [realizing the] glory. Colossians 1:27

  As believers, our only hope of glory is Christ Jesus. Only He can provide us what we need to live joyfully and victoriously in this life.

  As we have seen, Jesus is called the Rock because He was solid and stable — always the same, never changing. He was not moved by all the things that move us. People could try to push Him off a cliff, and He would walk right through their midst.

  How was He able to do things like that? He was able to do that because He knew He was in God's hands and that nobody could do anything to Him out of God's will and timing. He rested in that knowledge, and it gave Him an unshakable sense of peace and security. In Mark 4 He was able to speak peace to the storm because He never allowed the storm to get inside Him. He remained calm!

  That is more or less the same kind of attitude and outlook I have seen in my husband Dave. If we had money problems, I would get all worried, not knowing what was going to become of us. But Dave would simply say, “Joyce, we're tithing and doing everything the Lord has told us to do. God has always met our needs before, and He will meet them this time too. Why should we sit around and be miserable, trying to figure out what to do? Let's just relax and trust the Lord to handle everything.”

  If someone began to talk negatively about us or came against us or tried to stir up strife against us, I would get all nervous and upset. But Dave would be totally unruffled.

  I would say, “Dave, doesn't all this drive you nuts!”

  “No,” he would answer. “We don't have a problem, it's all these people who have the problem. Our heart is right before the Lord, so why should we get all bothered?”

  With most of us, that kind of spiritual stability and emotional maturity doesn't come naturally. We have to desire it with all our heart. We have to determine that whatever it takes, we are going to have it. We have to develop a hunger for it, like the hunger for righteousness that Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount. (Matt. 5:6).

  We have to get to the point that we are determined to enjoy our spiritual inheritance.

  Emotional Stability As a Spiritual Inheritance

  In Him we also were made [God's] heritage (portion) and we obtained an inheritance; for we had been foreordained (chosen and appointed beforehand) in accordance with His purpose, Who works out everything in agreement with the counsel and design of His [own] will,

  So that we who first hoped in Christ [who first put our confidence in Him have been destined and appointed to] live for the praise of His glory! Ephesians 1:11,12

  We have got to get to the point of knowing who we are in Christ and what is rightfully ours because we have placed our confidence in Him.

  Emotional stability is part of our spiritual inheritance.

  We do not have to live on an emotional roller coaster in which our feelings go up and down from one day to the next. Instead, we are to live as Christ lived, with a sense of peace and security that comes from knowing who we are and Whose we are.

  Until we make the decision to claim and live in our inheritance, the enemy will continue to rob us of what Jesus died to provide for us — His peace and joy that prevail within us even in the midst of the turmoil and confusion and fear that surround us on all sides.

  In John 16:33 Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation. Cheer up! I have overcome the world.” We cannot cheer up until we calm down. We can enjoy life even if all our circumstances aren't great. Yet we cannot have joy without peace.

  The Goal of Emotional Stability

  My son David and I have the same type of strong choleric personality, so we often got into screaming matches with each other before we learned to submit our personalities to the Lord.

  Before I learned to depend on the Holy Spirit to help me control my emotional outbursts, I was under constant condemnation. I finally stopped feeling guilty for my emotional lapses when I realized I was a human being with a weak nature and if I had been perfect I would not have had a need for a Perfect Savior.

  Jesus came to be the Perfect Sacrifice for us because we do not have the ability to be perfect in our natural man. We need to remember that fact when we are tempted to be overcome by guilt and condemnation every time we fail to control our emotions.

  Through a series of painful experiences with my son, I learned that a little humility teaches a far greater lesson that warfare. David began to change when I began to change, and I began to change when I finally came to realize that although I have emotions, I don't have to give in to them.

  The point I am making is not that I never have negative emotions anymore, but that it has become my goal to control my emotions, not the other way around. But until I got to the place that I wanted to stop giving in to my emotions of anger, self-pity, and depression, I was a mess.

  What I had to do was set for myself the goal of emotional stability. I had to learn to seek not to be emotionless, but rather to be well-balanced in my emotional life.

  Well-Balanced

  Be well balanced (temperate, sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring [in fierce hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and devour.

  Withstand him; be firm in faith [against his onset — rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined], knowing that the same (identical) sufferings are appointed to your brotherhood (the whole body of Christians) throughout the world. 1 Peter 5:8,9

  To be temperate is to be self-controlled. And to be sober of mind is to be level-headed.

  So here you and I are told to be well-balanced, self-controlled, level-headed, rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined.

  According to this passage, how are we going to defeat the devil and withstand his physical and emotional onsets upon us? By being rooted and grounded in Christ. Satan may come against us with feelings, but we don't have to submit to our emotions. We can stand firmly against them even while they rage against us and even within us.

  Constancy and Fearlessness<
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  … do not [for a moment] be frightened or intimidated in anything by your opponents and adversaries, for such [constancy and fearlessness] will be a clear sign (proof and seal) to them of [their impending] destruction, but [a sure token and evidence] of your deliverance and salvation, and that from God. Philippians 1:28

  Notice those two words “constancy” and “fearlessness.” They describe the rock-like temperament you and I are to display in the face of attacks and onslaughts by our opponents and adversaries — both physical and spiritual.

  When people or events come against us to destroy us, we are to stand firm, confident everything is going to work out for the best. We are not to change, but rather to remain constant and let God do the changing — of the circumstances.

  When problems arise — and they will from time to time — we are not to assume that the Lord will intervene without an invitation and take care of all our problems for us. We are to pray and ask Him to change our circumstances. Then we are to remain constant and unchanging, which will be a sign to the enemy of his impending downfall and destruction.

  Do you know why our constancy and fearlessness are a sign to Satan that he will fail? Because he knows that the only way he can overcome a believer is through deception and intimidation. How can he threaten someone who has no fear of him? How can he deceive someone who recognizes his lies and refuses to believe them? What good does it do him to try to stir up fear or anger or depression in someone who will not be moved by emotions but who chooses to stand firmly on the Word of God?

  When the devil sees his tactics are not working, he realizes he is failing and will be utterly defeated.