Your Emotions Don’t Have to Control You

The obsessive thoughts. The consuming lies. The ever-present ache in my heart.

I felt weary and distant from God. I felt weak and helpless to change my situation. I felt apathetic about my circumstances. I craved constant happiness in my life, but my craving was impossible to attain.

Will God save me from this? How long will He let Satan torment me? God does have the power to stop or allow Satan’s deceptive schemes. So when will He stop the devil’s attacks?

Doubt, anger, and despair filled my heart. If God was good, He would save me from this mess. If God loved me, He would free me from this prison cell. If I truly belonged to Him, this would pass. Right?

Your Emotions Aren’t Going Anywhere

I know it’s ridiculous to expect that my feelings will disappear or that I’ll suddenly become numb to my emotions. But that’s what I wanted God to do. I wanted Him to make my bad feelings go away and stay away.

However, the truth is that our bad feelings never really disappear—not in this life. Our emotions—both good and bad—are part of everyday life. Constant happiness simply isn’t possible, friends.

As you’ve probably learned by now, life doesn’t get easier as we get older, Rather, as we grow up, encounter new people, and experience new situations, we learn how difficult life can be. We also learn how difficult our emotions can be.

When we were young, we probably didn’t feel depressed for more than 10 minutes. We only got angry when our siblings took our toys. We only felt upset when we fell off our bikes. We only became frustrated when we misspelled words on spelling tests.

Our feelings change dramatically as we get older. They become deeper, longer lasting, and more painful. They consume more of our lives than they did when we were kids. But even though our emotions are now harder to deal with, I want to tell you a secret about them: Our emotions don’t have to control us.

But Your Emotions Can Be a Good Thing

Although our emotions aren’t sinful in and of themselves (after all, Jesus experienced both positive and negative emotions), they can still lead us to sin—or to Him.

Anger can lead us to become impatient with others—or to pray for strength. Gloominess can lead us to become apathetic—or to lean on other believers. Despair can lead us to throw a pity party—or to trust that God’s promises are true. Desire can lead us to envy others—or to be thankful for what we have. Even happiness can lead us to become self-centered—or to serve others who aren’t as happy.

So feeling a certain way isn’t necessarily a choice, but following our feelings into sin is a choice. And it has consequences.

Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth; walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these God will bring you into judgment. (Ecclesiastes 11:9 NKJV)

Though Solomon (the writer of Ecclesiastes) often followed his heart and his eyes, he still had incredible wisdom and discernment (1 Kings 4:29-31). And his warning in Ecclesiastes 11:9 is valuable for us. If we follow our hearts (which our emotions flow from), God will bring us into judgment.

Feelings can’t disappear, and we can’t wish them away. But we can thank God for the positive emotions and rely on Him when we have negative emotions.

This post was originally published here.