There was a time when l loved my emotions, especially the bad ones. I found great pleasure in going home all alone, getting into a bath, lighting some candles, playing some really sad music, and crying. I would think of all the miserable stuff in my life—and believe me, I found plenty—and then cry about it. Ah, the healing power of a good cry! It was my favorite pastime, but unfortunately it was also one that was destroying me at the same time.   In fact, there was a time when those emotions got so strong that they started to seem less like feelings and more like ‘voices.’ And finally they started to try to stake a claim on my life. I can remember one day when I was so depressed that the ‘voices’ in my head told me my life was worthless and I should just end it right there and then. I don’t think I was crazy, I think I was just giving too much attention to my emotional life, and not enough to truth. And as a result those emotions started to destroy me.

In his book, Man, the dwelling place of God, AW Tozer said something that really hit home to me. He said this, “God never intended that such a being as man should be the plaything of his feelings. The emotional life is a proper and noble part of the total personality, but it is, by its very nature, of secondary importance. Religion lies in the will, and so does righteousness.  The only good that God recognizes is a willed good; the only valid holiness is a willed holiness.”

Wow, you means my emotions weren’t meant to control me? To be my guide, my instructor, my reason for doing whatever it was I was doing? That was news to me. If only I’d known that sooner, what misery could have been avoided! But no one ever told me the truth about my emotions, and that is that they lie to you.

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be lied to anymore. I want to live in the truth, and so I’ve started to take my emotions with a grain of salt. Letting them speak, but then responding to them with truth. Like when I’m scared, that emotion can be so powerful and it can feel like I’m wresting with a giant, but when I remind myself that God can be trusted, even with the scary things. When I remember that if he allows it in my life, then it’s the best thing that could happen, well then, the emotion of fear loses it’s punch. And the emotions of peace, hope and even joy take over.

Emotions aren’t inherently bad, but obeying them is. Have you ever obeyed your emotions over your God? Chosen to follow your feelings instead of your faith? Being a girl can be complicated by the existence of strong emotions. What emotions do you want to say no to the next time they tell you to jump?