Disclaimer: Most of where I’m getting these thoughts come
from Living the Cross Centered Life by
C.J. Mahaney, a worth while book I’m reading this summer. This is my personal
adaptation of the book.
Most of my unhappiness in life is due to the fact that I am
listening to myself instead of talking to myself.
Here is normally how my mornings go: My alarm goes off. I
annoyingly flop my arm around until I find the snooze button. Make
it stop! Three jarring snoozes later, my body and my thoughts roll out of
bed. Why did Amy have to leave her towel in the bathroom? IT BLEONGS ON THE
RACK! I have to work today. Another reason to be in a bad mood. I hate work.
Why didn’t dad turn on the AC last night? IT’S SO HOT. GAH.
Life is just one big hot mess.
Every day I’m faced with two simple questions. Am I going to
listen to myself and my constantly changing feelings about my circumstances, or
am I going to tell myself about the unchanging truth of who God is and what
He’s accomplished for us on the cross through his son Jesus? I am such a “feelings-focused”
person, and that makes it even harder in today’s society when it’s telling me
to “follow my heart.” But unless my feelings and emotions are Biblical based, I’m
letting my feelings tell me what’s true, instead of letting the truth transform
my feelings.
It is very easy to let my decisions be made by the way I’m
feeling at a certain moment in time. But trusting my own decisions based on what I think my heart is telling me is risky. My feelings are so uppity and my emotions utterly unstable. They are filled
with lies that I have convinced myself are true. What I need to recognize is
that I need to believe the truth regardless of how I feel. When my emotions are
controlled with Biblical thinking, it allows me to take those emotions into a
realm of adoration for the Lord that I’ve never experienced. “Deep and profound
feelings are the inevitable effect of the Scripture rightly believed and
understood.”
