Emotions
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CHOOSING TO TRIUMPH
How God Makes Victory Possible
“I’M SO CONFUSED. WHY WOULD God allow this to happen? Doesn’t He care about me?”
“Sometimes I’m completely paralyzed by the thought that people will find out I’m a fraud. And when I consider the future, I am absolutely filled with dread.”
“I feel so . . . trapped. I just don’t see a way out of all these problems. Why doesn’t God help me?”
“Things are so bad right now I don’t have the energy to go on. I just want to disappear.”
“I feel so alone. No one really loves or understands me. And really, why should they? I’m not so sure I like myself.”
“I know God forgives me, but after what I’ve done, I just can’t forgive myself.”
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As a pastor for more than five decades, I’ve heard devastating statements like these repeatedly—the pain of people overwhelmed by deep emotional wounds. We cannot deny it—emotions are powerful. We cannot see, taste, or touch them, but we are constantly affected by their forceful presence and the incredible influence they have over us. They are able to alter how we view our day, other people, and even the major events of our lives.
Through our feelings, we have the ability to enjoy amazing triumphs and experience deep fulfillment. In fact, some of the greatest accomplishments in history were fueled by the love, enthusiasm, and compassion of the people who achieved them.
On the other hand, negative emotions left unchecked can lead us to some of the worst tragedies. Greed, pride, envy, fear, and hatred have destroyed lives and brought down empires.
God created us with the capacity to experience the full gamut of emotions so we could enjoy life, share our inner being with others, and reflect His image.
God created you and me with the capacity to experience the full gamut of emotions so we could enjoy life, share our inner being with others, and reflect His image. They were given to us as a gift so we could interact meaningfully with our heavenly Father and the people we know. However, in this fallen world, our feelings have become a mixed blessing. The same capacity that allows us to experience intense, overflowing joy is also the gateway to sorrow so deep and overwhelming that, like Job, we may wish we had never been born (Job 3:3).
Perhaps you have picked up this book because you have seen this in your own life or in the lives of those you love. You have witnessed a pendulum of emotion—highs so great and lows so extreme that you cannot help but question what is going on.
It could also be that you know people who seem to live in abiding peace and contentment, regardless of what they experience. Truly, “The joy of the LORD is [their] strength” (Neh. 8:10). You wonder if you could ever attain such emotional stability and satisfaction.
It’s possible that you aren’t quite sure what’s going on inside of you, and you’re just seeking answers. Throughout the years, people have often come to me saying, “Dr. Stanley, I know something isn’t quite right, but I can’t put my finger on it.” I suspect most people have felt this way from time to time. They cannot pinpoint or define their problem, but they feel one exists nonetheless and long to get to the root of it.
Or maybe there is a pervasive agitation that lingers just below the surface of your emotions at all times and for whatever reason it just doesn’t go away. Without much warning, your distress springs up and you respond with such intensity that it shocks you and those with whom you’re interacting. You never know when this underlying current of anxiety, bitterness, guilt, insecurity, anger, loneliness—or any other destructive feeling—will rear its ugly head and leave destruction in its path. Even worse, you don’t understand how to take control of or get rid of it. No doubt, somewhere within you there is a genuine desire to be free of this tyrannical and unpredictable ache in your soul. After all, no one likes to feel bad all the time.
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Our emotions—especially the most damaging of them—can become a dominating force within us if we do not get a hold of them. Of course, most of us like to think that our feelings do not control us. But if we’re managing them with anything other than the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the principles of God’s Word, we will find it quite difficult to govern how they affect us when the storms of life arise. Given the right combination of circumstances and stressors, our emotions have the potential to motivate us to act recklessly and can also paralyze us from doing what is necessary.
So from the beginning, we see two important dimensions at work in our inmost being:
First, we have an incredible driving force within us that is not easily tamed.
Second, our feelings have a full range of expression: from peace, love, and joy to anxiety, hostility, and despair. From the passions that make life exciting and worth living to those which leave us desolate—wondering how we can go on.
With these in mind, we may wonder, Can we heal and harness our emotions—taking control of this powerful influence within us? And can we choose to express the positive, life-enhancing emotions rather than the destructive ones?
THE EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER
I recall a lady at one of the churches I pastored who struggled with uncontrolled emotions. She invariably wore her feelings on her sleeve. She was easily offended, often consumed with anger, and frequently grieved over the ways she had been mistreated. Sadly, she had no idea of how this was ruining her life and affecting those around her. She was unaware that she had a choice in the matter.
I can still remember the day I went to lunch with her husband and he expressed his brokenness over their strained marriage. “It’s exhausting,” he confided wearily.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing unusual,” he said. “It’s the norm, actually. But some days, I just find it so draining. I never know which version of my wife I’ll find when I go to the breakfast table in the morning or what drama will be waiting for me when I get home from work at night. Some evenings, as I reach out to take the doorknob, I just pray, ‘God, please give me the strength to face whatever is on the other side of this door.’ I dread the emotional firestorm that awaits me. Sometimes she is happy—even giddy with good news, and that’s great. But more often than not, she is sad to the point of tears or so extremely angry that she throws the dishes. I never know what to expect. It’s as if she is on a roller coaster that never ends. And unfortunately, I’m along for the ride whether I like it or not. It’s exhausting.”
I had no doubt it was an extremely difficult way to live. “How do you deal with this?” I asked.
He replied, “I try not to say anything. I avoid reacting or responding to what she does because I don’t want to aggravate her in any way. I do everything I can to evade becoming the object of her sadness or anger. It’s just survival, really.”
What a tragedy. Instead of enjoying the wonderful gift of marriage they had been given, this couple was caught in a destructive cycle of outburst and avoidance. The more she would attempt to provoke a response from her husband through her emotional outbursts, the more he would avoid her. And the more he tried to pacify his wife’s pain by not engaging with her, the more explosive her responses to him became.
Though both were certainly responsible for some bad decisions, I was always struck by the intense anger and rejection that characterized her interactions with others, which is why I focus on her behavior here. These destructive emotions created a constant tension within her—she was continually plagued with anxiety and suspicion toward those around her. Worst of all, she refused to forgive those who wronged her. If something triggered those old hurts in her memory, she could recall and rekindle intense emotions she had experienced years before within seconds.
She allowed her emotions to rule her, and because of her inability to overcome them or to choose her responses, she was unable to fully enjoy the blessings the Lord had for her. She did not live with a sense of His victorious power. Rather, she endured the terrible bondage of continuous inner churning and restlessness, which kept her from experiencing God’s wonderful plan and purpose for her life. Seeing the agony she lived with day in and day out was absolutely heartbreaking.
Victory is possible. Genuine healing can occur if we’re willing to allow the Father to set us free.
Certainly she isn’t alone. We all go through times of being on edge and distraught. But what I endeavored to teach her and hope to communicate in this book is that as believers, there is no reason for us to live this way. Yes, we may have endured terrible things in our lives and may have been deeply wounded in the process. But there is hope. We can harness our emotions—taking control of this powerful force within us. And we can choose how we respond—opting to express the edifying emotions rather than the destructive ones. Victory is possible. Genuine healing can occur if we’re willing to allow the Father to set us free.
The good news is that Lord wants to heal you and those you l...