Yesterday, I posted
Part 1 of Managing Your Emotions.  It was
all about how emotions can be mean little boogers…they are unstable,
ever-changing and they lie.  If you
didn’t get a chance to read it, I hope you will take the time to scan through
it.  It’s not Hemingway or anything but
it does make some valid points about the dangers of relying on our
feelings. 

So, if our emotions
are unstable and untrustworthy, why are we so easily lead by them?
  1. They
    are our constant and earliest companion. 
    Our emotions are with us every second of every day, everywhere we
    go which makes them a little difficult to ignore.
  2. They
    are LOUD little things!  Feelings can be incredibly strong and
    run deep which also makes them hard to ignore.
  3. Even
    though they often lie or make situations seem larger than life, they seem
    genuine and justified at the time. 
    The old adage to “just sleep on it” comes in handy
    here.  It’s amazing what a difference
    a day makes.
  4. They
    demand urgency, convincing you something must be done right away or you
    will fall over dead from the unaddressed injustice.  Once again, “just sleep on it”
    sounds like words of a genius who’s been there, done that.  We seldom make wise decisions or choose
    wise words when acting out of a sense of urgency.
  5. Emotions
    are a habit.  If you’re like me,
    you’ve let emotions manage you instead of you managing them for as long as
    you can remember.  They aren’t going
    to relinquish their control over night. 
    You’ve got to replace the bad habit with a new one by repeatedly
    choosing to be led by God instead.
It’s easy to see how emotions are the perfect tool for Satan
to hold us back and load us down with all sorts of trouble.  If we
are constantly led by them, we can be sure to expect:
  1. fights
    with friends and family
  2. needless
    worry (all worry is needless.  See
    Matthew 6:25-27)
  3. a
    constant roller coaster that’s not fun
  4. magnified
    insecurities
  5. drama,
    drama, drama
Yuck, none of us wants a life like that.  That’s why we’ve got to learn to trust God
instead of our emotions if we are ever going to experience the peace He intends
for us.  God is everything our emotions
are not!  He’s trustworthy.  2 Samuel 7:28 says, ”  Lord God, You are God; Your words are true,
and You have promised grace to Your servant.”  He is also stable and constant regardless of
our changing circumstances.  Hebrews 13:8
promises, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and
forever.”  There’s no better
foundation to build a life upon than God. 

All of this focus on the negative side of emotions is
draining but needed.  Tomorrow, we’ll
turn things around and talk about the good that comes from our feelings.  Yes, those lying little boogers are good for
something!