Don’t Be Ruled by Your Emotions

Nothing is more dangerous to Satan than a believer who is willing to obey God and believe His Word no matter how they feel.

More than anything else, we often tell people how we feel, but feelings don’t always tell us the truth. We may feel like doing one thing at 8am and somehow by 2pm we no longer feel like doing it, even though we said we would do it earlier. 

People make emotional decisions every single day. They overeat because of emotions; they say and do things they regret because of emotions; they even make large “impulse” purchases because they’re caught up in the moment and overtaken by the excitement. Satan likes to play on our emotions. He wants us to follow through with our impulses and do things we will later regret. So, when we’re making decisions, we can’t rely on our feelings to always steer us in the right direction. 

I think one of the greatest things we can ever do is ask ourselves these questions: What does God’s Word say to do? What does wisdom say to do? Hebrews 4:12 says that God’s Word is sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing soul and spirit and judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. In other words, God’s Word gives us wisdom to know right from wrong…and keep our thoughts and attitudes in control.

It can sometimes be challenging to know if what we want is what God wants for us. When we feel strongly about something, we can easily deceive ourselves into believing it’s God’s will. That’s why it’s so important to take a step back and allow our emotions to subside and take time to ask the Lord about it.

I like to say that wisdom is doing now what you will be happy with later on. Wisdom says to wait a little while until the emotions settle down, then check to see if we really believe it's the right thing to do. I think this is a good principle to remember: Wisdom says “wait,” while emotions say, “Hurry!” 

Emotions urge us toward haste, telling us to do something…and do it right now! But godly wisdom tells us to wait until we have a clear picture of what we should do and when we should do it. We need to be able to back off and view our situation from God's perspective. We need to make decisions based on what we know rather than what we feel. 

Pray: Lord, help me today and every day to make decisions based on the wisdom of Your Word and not just by how I feel in the moment. Help me to be more sensitive to the leading of Your Holy Spirit and recognize when I am being swayed by my emotions. Thank You for Your grace and strength that helps me to be steady and stable, despite how I feel. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

Adapted from the book Your Battles Belong to the Lord by Joyce Meyer. Copyright 2019 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved. 

God gave us feelings, and they are an important part of life. However, we were never meant to be controlled by them! Let Joyce teach you how to manage your emotions instead of letting them manage you.