Freedom in Christ Session 8: Handling emotions well

Introduction

This morning we are continuing our Freedom in Christ study, looking at the important issue of how to handle our emotions well.

We can’t directly control how we feel

How do our emotions work?

If you think for a moment about the way in which you brain controls your body, there are some things you can and you cannot control. For example, when you choose to speak, or move part of your body, you are in control of that action. But the brain is also in control of things which you do not have direct control over, like for example causing your heart to beat or to regulate breathing. As you sit there listening to me, you do not have to consciously think about breathing, it just happens.

The same is true when it comes to our emotions, there are some things we can control and other things we cannot control. For example, if I told you to like someone you simply detest, you cannot simply change your emotions in an instance, it doesn’t happen that way.

So how do we handle our emotions well? Although we are not able to will ourselves to change how we feel, we can change our emotions over time, by choosing to change what we can control, by how we believe and behave.

Our feelings reveal what we really believe

Your emotions are to your soul what your ability to feel pain is to your body.

Suppose someone had the power to take away the sensation of pain. Would this be something you’d like?

It would be tempting wouldn’t it, especially if you suffer from chronic pain. But it would be dangerous. For instance, leprosy is not a disease of the flesh but a disease of the nervous system. People who suffer leprosy loose feeling, and so they don’t sense pain when they burn themselves or cut themselves, and this is why the damage is caused. Pain actually acts as a warning to us when we’ve hurt ourselves.

Our emotions can operate in the same way. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you never felt depressed, or anxious or angry? But these emotions give us important feedback to warn us that something is not right.

Feelings are a result of what we choose to believe

Although we can’t control our emotions directly, what we feel is in a general sense the result of what we believe or choose to think.

The trouble is that, if what you believe does not reflect truth, then what you feel will not reflect reality.

Suppose you work for a company that is ‘downsizing’, and people are being laid off. On your desk on Monday morning is a note from your boss. He wants to see you at 10.30 on Friday morning. If you think you are going to be laid off, you will probably get angry. If you are uncertain, you may feel anxious. By Thursday you are depressed because you have convinced yourself that you are going to lose your job. By Friday morning you are an emotional mess – all because of what you were thinking, and none of it was based on reality. At the meeting your boss surprises you by giving you a pay rise. Now how would you feel? You spent all week feeling bad because you did not know the truth.

Lamentations 3 illustrates well the relationship between beliefs and emotions. Jeremiah is having a bad day – he is utter despair because he believes, quite wrongly, that God is the cause of all his physical problems.

I am the man who has seen affliction, by the rod of his wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me… He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones.

Jeremiah’s conclusion in verse 18 is: So I say “My splendour is gone and all that I hoped from the Lord.”

What was Jeremiah’s problem? Simply that what he believed about God wasn’t actually true! God had not afflicted him.

Then Jeremiah has a change in perspective.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion therefore I will wait for him.” (Lamentations 3:19-24)

What changed for Jeremiah? Was it his circumstances? No! The only thing that changed was in his mind: how he looked at his circumstances.

Life’s events don’t determine who you are or what you feel – it’s your perception of those events.

If what you believe does not reflect the truth, then what you feel will not reflect reality.

The more we commit ourselves to the truth and choose to believe what God says is true, the more we will see our circumstances from God’s perspective and the less our feelings will run away with us.

Changing how we feel

So the big question: if we are overwhelmed by difficult circumstances from the past or the present, which cause us to be plagued by negative emotions, what can we do about it?

Let’s look at a situation in the Bible which appeared to be overwhelming: the Israelite army versus Goliath and the Philistine army (1 Samuel 17). For the Israelite army the situation seemed impossible, how could they defeat this army, particularly when they had Goliath.

But then David comes along, pulls out his sling and says, “How dare you challenge the armies of the living God?” and he kills Goliath.

Both David and the Israelite army were confronted by the same situation. One group saw the giant in relationship to themselves, but David saw the giant in relationship to God. Which saw the situation as it really was?

You are not affected so much by your environment and circumstances as by how you see your environment and circumstances.

Can faith in God make that kind of difference in our lives? Absolutely! And it’s not just blind faith – it’s simply recognising what is actually true.

When you are confronted with a situation and feel overwhelmed, where does the stress come from? From the stressful situation? No – not directly. The main cause of stress comes from the way in which your mind interprets what is happening.

The main cause of stress is that we have come to believe through past experiences or failures that we can’t do anything about the difficult situation – we have learned a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. But as a Christian we are not helpless or hopeless. Healing comes by changing that sense of helplessness and hopelessness, by changing the way we think, what the Bible calls renewing your mind, understanding what is really true about God rather than what you experiences have caused you to believe, and committing yourself to believe that what God says is true even if it doesn’t feel true.

The principle in the Bible is: believe the truth and live the truth by faith, and when we do this our emotions respond accordingly. Jesus said, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (John 13:17). 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, and this over time leads to a change in our feelings.

Learning to handle emotions well

Your emotions are like the red warning light on the dashboard of your car. They are there to alert you to a potentially serious problem under the bonnet.

There are essentially three ways to reacting when the light comes on. You could ignore the warning light – that is suppression, you could explode in anger & smash the light – this is indiscriminate expression, or you could look under the bonnet – that is acknowledgement

Cover it up (suppression)

Suppression is when we consciously ignore our feelings or choose not to deal with them. The trouble with this is that if we try to bottle up our feelings too long, they can come to dominate our life, and this is an unhealthy way to deal with our emotions.

Feelings don’t die when you bury them, they are buried alive and they surface in some unhealthy way. It’s like trying to bury a mole – it will just burrow it’s way up to the surface again. Suppressing our emotions is physically unhealthy.

Explode (indiscriminate expression)

Another unhealthy way of responding to emotions is thoughtlessly to express everything you feel.

The problem with indiscriminate expression is that it is not healthy for those around us. It may temporarily feel good to you to ‘get things off your chest’, but it could be hurtful to other people like you spouse, children or friends.

James teaches that “everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” (James 1:19-20

Be Honest

So what should we do when the red light comes on? When we feel angry, anxious or depressed? The healthy response is to be honest and acknowledge how we feel, and this begins with acknowledging our emotions with God. God knows the thoughts and intentions of our hearts, and so we can be entirely open and honest with him, we can even express our anger with him, because nothing will take his love from us.

When we open up with God, just as when we open up with others, when we pour out our pain and feelings, it acts as an emotional catharsis.

Jesus was emotionally honest. He wept over the city of Jerusalem and at the grave of Lazarus. In the Garden of Gethsemane he said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Mark 14:34). Now if the Lord of the universe needs to be expressive and honest like that, what about you and me.

We need to be honest with God, if we are to have an open relationship with him.

Handing past traumas

We have been talking about managing day to day emotions, but what about major traumas from the past?

All of us have had traumatic experiences that have scarred us emotionally and left us with emotional baggage – a fearful experience, loss of a loved one, some form or abuse. These experiences are often deeply buried in our memories, but surface when triggered by some event in the present. People simply try to avoid present events that trigger those kinds of feeling. “I am not going there if so and so is there.” “I don’t want to talk about that subject right now.” But God doesn’t want emotional pain from our past to influence us negatively today.

When you suffered negative experiences – violence, abuse, rejection or whatever – you mentally processed it at the time it happened. It almost certainly caused you to believe some things about God and yourself. “I couldn’t resist the abuse – I’m powerless, I’m a victim.” “Those bullies told me I was rubbish – I guess I am.” “My dad never has time for me – I’m not important.”

Mental strongholds distort our understanding of who we are and who God is. We remain in bondage to the past, not because of the trauma itself, but because of the lies we believed at the time. It’s like a Land Rover driving across a muddy field day after day making deep ruts. Those lies become like deep ruts in our minds. If we don’t actively steer out of them by choosing truth, we will continue to live according to the same old patterns.

As children of God, we are not primarily products of our past. We are products of Christ’s work on the cross and his resurrection. Nobody can fix our past, but we can be free from it. We can re-evaluate our past from the perspective of who we are now in Christ. From this truth perspective, God sets us free as we forgive from our hearts those people who have offended us.

We all carry around within us emotions of hurt and pain, things in our lives that we would like to be rid off. And God speaks to us, saying, “I want to give you beauty for your ashes, oil for joy for your mourning, a garment of praise for your spirit of heaviness.” We can give God the ashes in our lives, and in exchange God gives us his beauty.