Enslaved By Your Own Emotions

“Anything I put before my God is an idol and anything I want with all my heart is an idol. Anything I can’t stop thinking of is an idol.”

When we think of idols we typically think of the golden calf or we think of how we’ve allowed people or possessions to become an idol. We fail to acknowledge the idols that we’ve created that are not tangible. That includes all of those feelings and emotions that we allow to run wild and keep us from spending time with God and giving our cares to Him. Granted, I get that may seem like a stretch when you think of idol worshiping. You wouldn’t say that you worship your up and down emotions and you definitely wouldn’t say that you admire those fickle feelings. However, we continue to allow fear, worry, anxiety, stress, anger, and all these other feelings come between us and our relationship with God. We allow these “feelings” to take over and torment our hearts and mind as we entertain what we feel like on any given day instead of trusting and believing God’s Word. We don’t turn to God to help us through our day instead we let our little feelings fester and take over and now our day is based off of how we feel versus who we are (need a reminder of who you are? Listen to this song). We believe the status of our troubles and our problems more than we believe God. We don’t even realize how we allow these feelings to take over and become idols in our lives but just as we give our time and energy to people and things when we make them idols, we do the same as we continue to feed our feelings. Anything that you put before God is an idol.

I’m aware of how girly this is going to sound, feel free to judge me, but when I’m feeling down I have to shop. When I buy stuff it pacifies my feelings and then I feel better and if I can’t find anything I want to buy I continue to feel down and stay in a rut. Crazy, trust me I know. FYI, yes shopping can be an idol as well. I was having a pretty down week and I was getting dressed to go shopping and something says why are you trying to replace Me? Why do you continue to try to fill voids without Me? You know better…When you get that gut instinct about things or you hear that little voice in your head it’s not simply just your conscience. It’s the conviction of the Holy Spirit trying to get your attention. God is trying to get your attention! He’s trying to bring you back to Him and get your focus off of the crazy emotional rollercoaster that your feelings have had you flying around on forever. But instead of turning to God we allow these things to fester and we continue to feed these negative emotions. Don’t you know that God desires to help you with every single aspect of your life and not just the “church” stuff? He so desires to show you how much more He can do in your life if you would just stop putting Him into this box of what you think He is and is not capable of. 

God’s looking down at you saying My child, give Me your worries. I care about you. I love you. I want to take the weight of your burdens from you but you don’t trust Me to handle it. I won’t fail you, I haven’t failed you yet. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. I didn’t give you this life for you to be burdened by it. Let go of the worry, let go of the anger, let go of the fear, let go of who hurt you. Trust Me when I say I’ve got you covered. 

 Allow God to be your peace in the midst of stress and fear. Stop worrying about what tomorrow is going to bring (Matthew 6:34). We get so worked up about things that haven’t happened for us yet and we fear things that may never even happen. We miss being present for today because we’re stressed and worried about tomorrow. Allow God to take care of you and handle your cares and frustrations. I say allow because God wants to take care of you! He wants to cover you and shower you with His love, joy, and peace but you have to receive it. Don’t allow your feelings to replace God in your heart. Sometimes our fear that God won’t be able to take care of us or our problems is greater than the truth and belief that He can. The enemy knows your fears and insecurities just as God does and he loves to fuel that fire of your up and down feelings. It’s time to put that fire out; stop fueling that fire. Do you know what happens when you stop feeding something? It will eventually starve. Stop feeding those things that you know are not of God.  God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). That little tidbit was not just put into the bible for kicks and giggles. It was put there because it is the true word of the living God. I don’t know what you believe, but I still believe God to be the Great I Am and not the Great I might be or the Great I was. Ain’t nothing changed but the day. Take your eyes off of what’s wrong and allow God to establish your foundation on the solid Rock and not your fickle emotions. Stop looking at your situation and get your eyes on the One who can change things. Great life tip, the best way to encourage yourself is to encourage someone else.