Start Your New Life Today (18 page)
You were put on this earth to spread God’s love, and nothing could be more valuable than that.
Maybe you never learned your own importance. That’s what happened to me. As a child, I was abused and taught that I was the least valuable person on the planet. It took me many years of studying God’s Word and fellowshipping with Him before I got even an inkling of my own worth.
Or maybe you did know your value when you were younger, but somewhere along the way you forgot it, buried it under a to-do list that clamored louder for your attention than your own soul. If so, then join the club. The degraded value systems in the modern world pummel us with the message that our spirit, soul, and body come last, after money and food and status and stuff. No matter how hard we resist, we all succumb now and then.
I can’t tell you strongly enough how important it is to reform your value system, to go back to a much older value system—
God’s
value system. It applies to all people, and it puts your entire being (body, mind, will, emotions, and spirit) right at the top of God’s list of important and valuable things. Your entire being plays an important role in God’s plan; He’s entrusted you with the great responsibility of taking care of it. Only by keeping your spirit, soul, and body in tip-top condition can you truly do God’s work.
It is important to deal with negative emotions because they steal your energy and can even be the root cause of serious disease. Remember that disease causes disease.
Let me give you an example. One day I was experiencing a lot of guilt over something I did wrong. Although I asked God to forgive me and actually believed He had, I still felt guilty. My mind was on my past when it should have been on my future. I felt depressed and discouraged. I had a headache, and in general did not feel like doing much of anything. The Holy Spirit began to deal with my attitude. He asked me if I thought my attitude was helping me or His work. He then said, “I want you to get over this because you are no good to Me in this condition.” The Holy Spirit’s straightforward way of dealing with me caused me to see that I was wasting my day on negative emotions. I was actually allowing my soul (mind, will, and emotions) to adversely affect my spirit and my body. My spirit felt oppressed and my body ached. We must realize we are complex creatures and every part of us affects the other parts.
You Can Control Your Emotions
I
used to wonder, “What is wrong with me, anyway?” Have you ever felt that way? You lie in bed in the morning, making all sorts of wonderful plans about how good you’re going to be that day, but as soon as you are up, you ruin your plans. You deal with a few people, somebody does one little thing you don’t like, and you turn into a totally different human being. I always say I never had any problem getting along with everybody when nobody was home. It was when they came home at night that I had a problem!
I could be so spiritual during the day, singing praises to the Lord, “I surrender all . . .” Then my children would maybe drop or spill something, causing me to fly into a rage—a spiritual Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Afterward, I spent the rest of the evening under self-condemnation. The same devil who tempts you to act stupid is the same devil who comes around and condemns you for doing what he told you to do.
Some people say, “Well, I just can’t help it. I lose control.” Yes, we can help it. I know we can because we are able to control ourselves around particular people—people we want to impress. I could have been in the middle of the biggest fit in the whole world, but if somebody like my pastor walked up, I straightened up extremely fast and became kind and loving. We’re often like different creatures when we think nobody is looking. But what really goes on in your private life shows in your public life, whether or not you know it. God is called all-seeing and all-knowing, and we’re definitely not putting anything over on Him. Remember God is watching you all the time. We need to stop thinking we can’t control our emotions and start learning how to deal with and manage them in a godly way.
Excuses are just reasons stuffed with a lie. We make excuses and thereby deceive ourselves. What we are doing would be wrong for someone else, but we have an excuse for doing it. Are you ready to get rid of your “excuse bag”? I think we all have one and it is stuffed with a variety of excuses for every conceivable situation. If we are grouchy, our excuse is we feel bad or had a tough day at work. If we are selfish, we tell ourselves that if we don’t take care of ourselves then nobody will. If we are spending more money than we make, we tell ourselves how wise it is to get the item while it is on sale. I encourage you to ask God to make you aware of all the excuses you make and start taking responsibility for your actions rather than excusing them.
We need to stop thinking we can’t control our emotions and start learning how to deal with and manage them in a godly way.
The Test of Emotionally Trying Times
A
few years ago, as I was praying, God revealed to me, “Joyce, I am going to test your emotions.” I had never heard of anything like that. Psalm 7:9 says God establishes the righteous, those upright and in harmony with Him, for Him; He tries the hearts, emotions, and thinking powers. The meaning of “tries” here means purifies. I didn’t know scriptures about God trying our emotions were even in the Bible.
About six months later I suddenly seemed to become an emotional wreck. I cried for no reason. Everything hurt my feelings. I thought,
What is the problem here? What’s going on?
Then the Lord reminded me of what He showed me earlier: “I am going to test your emotions.” He led me to Psalm 7:9 and Revelation 2:23 and caused me to understand what He was doing was for my good.
No matter who you are, there will be periods of time in which you feel more emotional than usual. You may wake up one morning and feel like breaking down and crying for no reason. That may last a day or a week, or it may last longer. You may think,
What is my problem?
During those times you have to be careful, because your feelings will get hurt very easily. The slightest thing will set you off. There were times in my life when I would go to bed praying, feeling as sweet as could be, then wake up the next morning like I had stayed up all night eating nails! I would get up in such a foul mood that if anyone came near me or crossed me, I felt like hitting them on the head!
What should we do when we start feeling that way? First of all, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to fall under condemnation. Secondly, we shouldn’t get confused trying to figure out what is happening. What we should do is simply say, “This is one of those times when my emotions are being tried and with God’s help I am going to be stable. We cannot always control how we feel, but we are in control of our decisions. Part of growing up in God is learning how to hold steady in the storms of life.
We cannot always control how we feel, but we are in control of our decisions.
Several years ago my husband and I purchased a fifty-two-year-old house and began remodeling it. Shortly after we began that project I felt in my heart God wanted me to start praying about learning to be more patient. We cannot learn patience without something to be patient about, and it seemed almost everything with the house started going wrong and there was nothing anyone could do to rush the process.
The remodeling turned into a bigger project than we thought it would be, and we needed to move in, but couldn’t. I became really angry and acted in a way that did not reflect my teachings on emotions! The Bible says in Psalm 94:12–13 that blessed is the man whom God disciplines until he learns to keep himself calm in adversity.
Sometimes God allows us to go through some trying times so we will have the opportunity to learn how to control our emotions. The Bible says God will never allow any more to come upon us than we are able to bear (see 1 Corinthians 10:13). God will test our emotions and help us learn stability because it’s only when we’re stable that we can truly enjoy life and be a good example to other people.
Be Mentally Prepared
I
have often heard that after a person goes through a real emotional high, he will usually bottom out with an emotional low. We see this in the life of Elijah the prophet in the book of 1 Kings. One day he was on Mt. Carmel making a fool of the priests of Baal, calling down fire from heaven, at the height of his elation. The next day he was out in the desert sitting under a juniper tree asking God to let him die because he felt so depressed.
I have noticed when I minister in a series of meetings, I spend everything I have spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. I get so excited when I see what God is doing to help and minister to people and change their lives through those meetings, through my radio and television broadcasts, and through other outreaches in which we are involved.
But then when I return from something exciting like that to normal, everyday life, I have to exercise discipline not to be dissatisfied with ordinary life. Who wants to go from seeing God perform miracles one day to doing normal household chores the next?
Sometimes we think,
Oh, if I could just stay on this emotional high forever then life would be great.
But the truth is if we were constantly doing something emotionally exciting, it would not be long before we wouldn’t appreciate those times. We need to be able to experience and be content with both sides of life. If we are only content during exciting times, it is our circumstances making us joyful, when it should be God. The apostle Paul stated that he learned how to be content (satisfied to the point where he was not disturbed) no matter what state he was in. Whether he was abounding or being abased, he remained content (see Philippians 4:11–12). Don’t despair if you are not at that place of stability yet. Paul said he
learned
it and we must do the same thing.
When I came home after those ministry trips, I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. Then I finally learned that the emotional high I experienced while being involved in the excitement of the conference left me tired physically, mentally, and emotionally and I needed to rest. Like Elijah in the desert I needed to rest and recuperate.
We simply cannot live on an emotional high with everything in our life going exactly the way we want it to. We must have contrast in order to even appreciate the good things we have.
When you experience something like that, you don’t need to react as Elijah did when he was exhausted. Instead of thinking what a miserable person you are and moaning and groaning about how happy you were yesterday but how terrible you feel today and complaining to the Lord about how worthless you feel, realize what is happening. When I reach that state, I say, “Lord, I’m feeling down right now, so I’m going to rest and build myself up physically as well as spiritually. It has really helped me to be mentally prepared for both abasing and abounding in my life. We simply cannot live on an emotional high with everything in our life going exactly the way we want it to. We must have contrast in order to even appreciate the good things we have. For example, if everything in life was the same color, then no color would stand out. We can trust God to do what is best for us. I believe Paul finally came to a place of contentment because he trusted God to do what he needed in every season of his life. We greatly honor God when we make the decision to be content no matter our circumstances.
Don’t Cater to Your Emotions
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young woman in one of our meetings once told me her husband was a manic-depressive. He went from one emotional extreme to another. She said for three months he would be on an emotional high and be really creative. In his business, he would buy and sell, invest large sums of money, and be tremendously successful. When he came down from those emotional highs, he would go into deep depressions that might last for as long as six months.
At one time, medical science looked at only the emotional lows for people suffering from manic depression. When they were enjoying an emotional high, nothing was done for them. According to an article I recently read, it has now been discovered that the attempt must be made to bring down the extreme highs as well. Health experts are learning that balance is the key.
We have always applauded high emotions and been critical of lows. Actually, both extreme ends are bad. Most of us will never have problems with manic depression, but we can learn a principle from how they are treated by understanding it isn’t good enough to simply resist depression; we must also resist the temptation to get so emotionally high that it leaves us exhausted and open prey for the devil. None of us can live on the mountaintop all the time. There are going to be days when we are up and days when we feel down. Emotions are fickle, fluctuating frequently for no apparent reason. What we need to learn is how to manage both ends of the emotional spectrum.
I have grown in this area, and to be honest I don’t feel extreme excitement now regarding my conferences or ministry opportunities. People frequently ask me if I am excited when I am leaving on a trip and they eye me suspiciously when I say, “Not really.” You see, I have learned about something that is much better than mere excitement. I am
passionate
about completing the work God has given me to do. Passion is much more than a feeling. It is the fuel that causes you to finish what you start.
Since I no longer give myself over to extreme emotional highs, I don’t experience the exhaustion and low moods I once did. I now have balance and it is wonderful.
One thing that is important for stable emotional health is honesty—with yourself and with others. People close to us can sense when we are struggling emotionally. I find it is best for my family and me if I am honest with them about what is going on with me. At those times when I feel myself sliding toward anger, depression, or any negative emotion, I tell my family, “My emotions are going haywire today, so if I’m quiet, just don’t pay any attention to me for a while.”