Charles Stanley, a televangelist, tells about his childhood conversion on a Sunday morning at the beginning of a weeklong revival. "As was my habit, I was there Sunday morning, front and center, with every intention of attending each night that week. After the choir had finished its song, Mrs. Wilson walked to the pulpit and preached a stirring salvation message. I don’t remember anything in particular that she said; I just remember feeling a strong desire to respond. When the invitation began, I rose from my seat and went forward. Before I reached the altar, I began weeping. I knelt down and started asking Jesus to save me."
For better or for worse we are all too aware that our feelings stir us to action. Our feelings move us. Rarely if ever do we think or even act without first feeling. Our feelings can draw us closer to the heart of God or they can just as quickly lure us from his presence. They can spur us to have an ever-deepening love for people or they can trigger ill will in the form of bitterness, jealousy, anger, malice, indifference, hatred, and even murder. The reality of the matter is that our feelings are one of the most influential factors and predictors of what we will do. Yet of all the dimensions of discipleship, heart, mind, body, soul, and relationships, we most neglect the discipleship of our feelings and emotions. Let me share some insights I’ve learned regarding our feelings and emotions.
We think with our feelings.
As hard as we try we cannot really divorce thinking from feeling. They work in tandem. Our minds are like a filing cabinet. Whenever our mind files an image or an idea it files a corresponding emotion that somehow got associated with that image. Consider a brief series of images that will appear on the screen behind me. What feelings arise as you view each image? Why certain feelings and not others? Red Corvette. Niagara Falls. Wedding. Church. Handgun. Sandwich.
We associate an emotion or feeling with every image and idea that enters our mind. To one person, a picture of a church can evoke fond memories and satisfaction. But that same picture can cause another to feel guilt or resentment.
Of concern here is that the right feelings get associated with images and thoughts. I grew up in a small community with inexperienced police officers. The officers were cocky, belligerent, unprofessional, jockish, and over-zealous. These officers would harass teenagers. They would mess with your mind. They would pull you over for the slightest offense. One officer bullied me, "If you don’t get new tires on your car, I will write you a ticket."
For the longest time the image of a police car caused me to become very anxious. I would hit the brakes. I’d check my seatbelt. Irrational stuff. It took a while for me to realize that because of my life experiences, I had associated certain feelings, in this case negative feelings, with certain images.
Think about images that evoke the most intense emotions for you. A family photo that causes you grief or pain. A person wearing a turban. Two men holding hands. An activist waving a sign and shouting. A flash of skin in a commercial. The face of an adversary. The face of a needy person. We do not think without also feeling. We associate thoughts with feelings.
We act with our feelings.
For better or for worse our feelings move us. They stir us to action. Dallas Willard, in Renovation of the Heart speaks of the "idolatry of feelings. "He says that our feelings are like little children clamoring for our attention shouting, "Give me, give me, give me." We exalt our feelings to the highest place. We give our feelings divine-like status and absolute sway over our entire being. It's as if we are on a conveyer belt of emotion, moving toward the buzz saw of sin. We have totally abandoned ourselves to our feelings. We can barely stop ourselves from following through on what we feel in the moment. We make the gratification of our feelings the supreme driving force in our lives. We allow our feelings to seduce us into disobedience. In our quest to gratify our feelings we ignore all sense of consequence. We object to any notion of right or wrong. We disconnect ourselves from God’s heart. We cease from pleasing him. And our justification is, do you really want to hear our justification? "If it feels so good, how can it be so wrong?"
One of the reasons we rely so heavily on our feelings to justify our lifestyle is that other people cannot refute how we feel. People can refute our logic, our assumptions, and our ideas, but not our feelings. Thus, the idolatry of our feelings. Never mind what God’s word says. Never mind what is moral and right and good and decent. Never mind what is beneficial to others. Never mind what common sense dictates, feelings reign supreme. Such is the misguided thought process of our unregenerate culture. In our culture feelings are the most compelling reasons. How absurd. And out of these misguided feelings the mind thinks and the body acts.
A lot of folks believe that they are the victims of their emotions. I was speaking with a woman who attends another church about this very thing. She was known for making emotional outbursts. She had everyone walking on eggshells around her. Her outbursts were destroying the life of the church. When confronted, she became indignant and said, "I cannot just turn my emotions off like a light switch. I can’t deny how I feel."
In her voice I sensed resignation. She seemed to believe that her feelings and emotions were an unchangeable and ungovernable part of her life. A lot of people think that their feelings and emotions are permanent and unchangeable, incapable of being redeemed by the power of Christ. But this just isn’t the case. God wants to renew our entire mind, including thoughts and feeling.
Consider Romans 12:2 (NIV)."Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is— his good, pleasing and perfect will."
Remember, the biblical mind is comprised of both thought and feeling. When Paul speaks of the renewal of the mind he is talking about the renewal of both thoughts (ideas, images, information, and thinking) and our feelings (emotions, desires). In Romans 12:2 Paul tells us not to conform any longer to the pattern of this world. The pattern of the world is just what we have described. The pattern of the world is putting our feelings in the driver's seat. It is idolizing our feelings to the degree that our feelings dictate our thoughts and actions and overall life. Paul says, "Don’t do that! Don’t acquiesce to your feelings. Don’t make your feelings your idol." I like how Dallas Willard puts it. "Our feelings are good servants, but they are disastrous masters."
Instead, Paul offers a new alternative to the pattern of the world. He says, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Paul uses a passive verb here to remind us that we are going to have to rely on God for the transformation and renewal of our thoughts and feelings. But he offers a promise. As once your mind is renewed, "Then you will be able totest and approve what God’s will is— his good, pleasing and perfect will."
In practical terms, what does it mean to no longer conform to the pattern of this world? And what does it mean to be transformed by the renewing of your mind? Let me outline what this involves.
Analyze your emotional triggers and patterns.
Do you know what is triggering your emotions and feelings? You feel lousy. You feel guilty. You feel angry. You feel depressed. But why? Our emotions can be triggered by a number of internal and external factors.
Some internal triggers include basic appetites like hunger, thirst, and sex. As these appetites burn within us, we might find ourselves feeling irritable, cranky, impatient, or anxious. Some other internal triggers include physiological (or chemical) changes in our bodies. This includes lack of rest, improper diet, menopause, and aging issues. These triggers are subtle and we can find our emotions shifting instantly. Understanding these triggers greatly diminishes the potential for negative emotions which wreck our relationship with God and others.
There are also external triggers. External triggers revolve around the five senses. Sights (images) trigger definite emotions. A suggestive image. Intimate eye contact. An act of violence. Such images trigger a response. Sounds trigger emotions. Music can inspire or depress your spirit. Talk radio, everyday conversations, an offhand comment. These can send us reeling! Smells trigger emotions. Perfume. Cologne. Smoke. Dusty books. Sawdust. Physical touch can trigger emotions. A handshake. A pat on the back. A hug. Taste can trigger emotions.
Certain sights, sounds, smells, touches, or flavors can instantly reconnect us with emotion-laden experiences from our past. And the next thing we know we're sobbing or feeling depressed or feeling angry or whatever.
When I was dating Lara, we were driving somewhere and I noticed her pressing her feet into the floorboard and clinching her seat. She didn’t like my city driving. But suddenly I found myself getting angry about it. I may have even snipped at her. As I sat there I was thinking, "It's no big deal. I love her. Forget about it." But these intense feelings were welling up inside me. Why? Because Lara clinching her seat and pressing her feet into the floorboard reminded me of my mother. My mother is a ruthless back seat driver, known to let out blood-curling screams in the middle of traffic. She cannot sit still in a moving vehicle. If a car pulls out three blocks ahead of you, she is telling you about it and doing the brake thing and having a panic attack! No kidding!
But why is my mom so over-reactive in traffic? Because she has been involved in several serious accidents and she is a claims adjuster who spends the entire day listening to automobile horror stories, and she doesn’t like my driving either! So it's important that we analyze what triggers our emotions.
If you are normal, you will need someone to help understand these triggers. Depending on how sophisticated and destructive your feelings are, you may even need to seek out a professional counseling. I pick a professional's brain all the time about stuff. I pick Lara’s brain all the time about stuff. Analyzing your emotional triggers is the first step.
Let God reprogram your feelings and emotions. Be transformed.
When I was young I watched a lot of trash on television. I watched movies full of violence, innuendo, and swearing. I was careless about the music I listened to. My mind quickly became polluted with spiritual toxins. Soon destructive, emotion-laden images were etched into my consciousness. These images began changing the way I felt about myself, my parents, my teachers, my church, God, money, work, education, and my sexuality. Everything! I found myself with unexplainable emotions like anger and a low self-esteem. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why I felt so bad.
Only by the grace of God did I realize that television was triggering many of these ill feelings. Garbage in, garbage out. If I were to describe what the television was doing to me, I’d say it was training me to idolize my feelings and emotions. The advertisements on television taught me that my every appetite, whatever it may be, no matter how base, deserved instant gratification. The shallow programming taught me that the way to true happiness was through selfishness, materialism, promiscuity, and immorality. Feeling-centered living. Most of this was very subtle, but then most of it was not very subtle. The television programming was programming my mind with ungodly and rather destructive images and feelings.
About the time I realized this, I had decided to go to Bible college. By choice I didn’t have a television in my dorm room. I didn’t bring my trash music. Instead, I had all this Bible-oriented homework. Every week I was reading these huge portions of scripture. For one class I had to memorize Matthew 5, Matthew 6, and Matthew 7,the entire Sermon on the Mount. Yes, I said chapters! What really happened is that God began renewing my mind. He was reprogramming and retraining my thoughts and feelings with wholesome images and thoughts and ideas from scripture. And then I found myself flooded with a whole new set of emotions. Love, joy, peace, happiness, and things I don’t know that I’d ever fully possessed. Unknowingly, I had invited God to renew my mind.
You are probably looking for a complex solution to your emotional turmoil. You might even think that there isn’t a chance that you’ll ever feel differently than you do now. I don’t think that God likes to bog us down in complex formulas for life transformation. You need to take simple steps to have your mind renewed.
Step number one: Run like mad away from the pattern of this world.
I’ve seen people courageously change work environments in order to avoid relationships in which they were emotionally vulnerable. I’ve seen people terminate bad friendships to opt for more healthy relationships in which they could be edified and built up in Christ. Families have unplugged their televisions and cancelled their cable subscriptions. Some have greatly limited their television intake, watching only certain programs. Teenagers have thrown out entire music collections and replaced them with Christian music. They have programmed the tuner in their car to Christian radio. I know of a pastor of a large church who got child-protection software for his internet connection.
If something triggers your self-destructive feelings and emotions, you can avoid that thing, whatever it is. Then run like mad from it.
Step number two: Be renewed in the word.
You have to get into the word, or you will not be changed. I have never met a growing Christian in my life who wasn’t personally getting into the word. When you read scripture God etches his images, ideas, and information in your consciousness through his Holy Spirit. But he does something else. We never file a thought without also filing a feeling. Through scripture God gives you his mind and his heart. He gives you his very image and all the corresponding feelings that go with that image, including love, joy, peace, contentment, and happiness. These are the byproducts of a mind renewed by God. You can’t achieve these things by yourself. God works them in your mind through his Spirit.
Getting you in the word is the obsession of my ministry and this church’s ministry. I pray that every one of you will get into an adult Bible fellowship where you will be systematically taught the whole counsel of God. I pray that every one of you will get involved in a Deeper Life Group starting in January so that you can develop the disciplines of daily devotions, Bible reading, Bible study, scripture memorization, prayer, fellowship, and evangelism.
The Bible is your spiritual lifeline. Through it, God causes you to grow.