Following on from last week when we looked at Reclaiming our Identity, today we’ll look at reclaiming our wellbeing, then reclaiming our power and we’ll finish with reclaiming our Purpose.
A huge part of our well-being is our emotions and how we handle them. We all have emotions and they’re not good or bad, the emotions themselves are neutral. It’s how we handle them that makes them positive or negative. God created us with emotions because He has emotions. We see it throughout the bible and in the life of Jesus in particular. He wasn’t a robot walking around without any feelings, he had compassion on those who were suffering, he got angry with those who were distracting people from following God, he wept when his friend died.
Jesus fully experienced life as a human. Hebrews 4:15
‘We do not have a high priest who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin.’
In all his emotions Jesus remained sinless. Therefore we are not aiming to feel less but to sin less by handling our emotions in a godly way.
Our emotions are the feelings we experience as we encounter various situations in life and these emotions lead to changes in our behaviour and physiology.
Unhealthy ways to handle our emotions are either suppression, which leads to feeling unhealthy ourselves or indiscriminate expression, which is unhealthy for those around us and usually those closest to us.
Emotions can act as a gauge about what is really going on in our hearts so even what are seen as negative emotions can be seen as positive if we learn to respond to them in a healthy way.
Possible causes for emotional dysfunction can be because of
Family – we can have difficulties in our upbringing or instability in the family home we see both of these in the story of Joseph in Genesis.
Church – can cause emotional dysfunction where there isn’t authenticity or a culture of fear and control.
Trauma – such as a betrayal, abuse or neglect. Or a physical trauma such as a car accident.
Chemistry – related to chemical imbalance or hormones. Don’t be ashamed of getting help if this is the case. God gives us doctors with skills in order to help us and medication can be a valuable step in finding stability.
Apparent negative emotions can indicate there’s something going on in our hearts. Anger can reveal a blocked goal, and anxiety can reveal my fears. They might reveal a need to repent or they can reveal a lie we’ve been believing, or maybe there’s unforgiveness that has taken route in our hearts.
Our neighbours had an underground stream running through their garden which they had stopped flowing under their house. So it didn’t affecting their property. But the water has to go somewhere! So it diverted through our garden and was bubbling up where we’d had some concrete removed. We had a choice, we could divert it again by laying more concrete! Or we could deal with it by giving it a route to go that would be helpful and mean that it doesn’t affect anyone else.
This image is really helpful to visualise exactly what happens when we suppress emotions. It has to come out somewhere and often it comes out in the relationships of those we’re closest to.
In order to move on we need to start by acknowledging our emotions, face up to them and be honest with ourselves.
Then we need to process and express those emotions and feelings. Ask yourself why you’re feeling this way, what has triggered it. Express them to God, I find journaling really helpful for this.
The last step in the process is to actually fight. Martyn Lloyd Jones said ‘Have you realised that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?’ We need to take control or as it says in 2 Corinthians 10:5 we take every thought captive.
We don’t stay in a victim mentality, we take control and redirect our thoughts. As it says in Philippians 4:8 we need to choose to fix our minds on whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
In doing this we will learn what Paul learnt, He says in Philippians 4:12-13 – I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Rachel Theunissen 