Emotions

Sooner or later, everyone needs a safe place, a protected place—cover from a blasting storm. When the sleet of illness pelts your life, when the downpour of grief drenches your heart, when the winds of anxiety threaten to knock you down, you need a secret place, a hiding place to escape from those things threatening to knock the props from your life. You need the shelter of the Most High!

Have you ever heard the term “mortification of the flesh”? That’s how theological writers of old termed what Paul presents in our passage today. These writers understood the spiritual battle—the old life, ruled by the sinful nature, versus the new life, ruled by the Spirit.

What’s on your mind? What do you find yourself thinking about? What are the default thoughts that occupy your mental energy?

After tragedy struck Job’s life, he moved into the natural and normal period of questioning. Then, as we saw last time, God rescued Job from his downward spiral and refocused his vision. Job was looking at his situation; God said, “Time to look at me.” With his eyes on the person and character of God, Job responds.

When your world begins to shake, you can go in one of two directions. You can turn to God and trust him to steady you. Or you can turn away from God and conclude he doesn’t care…maybe, he doesn’t even know what to do, so you’re better off on your own. At the end of the day, here’s the question: Which way will you turn?

The room was tense as we sat around folding tables in a small room at our church. One person had said something to hurt another person. We were there to make things right—to seek and grant forgiveness. Those are hard meetings, and on this day, forgiveness never came. The exchange was sharp; the emotions were high. After much discussion, prayer, and reading Scripture, one person got up and stormed out of the room. He never set foot in our church again.

Sin provides my greatest satisfaction apart from God. Sin is fun…for a time (Hebrews 11:25). It meets my fleshly desires. It gives me control. I think thoughts I want to think. I savor emotions that meet my needs. I do the things I want to do. Sin is all about me and all about me wanting to be in control.

It was going to be a tough meeting. Those sitting around the table had some serious issues with each other. You could feel the tension—so thick you could cut it with a knife, as the saying goes. I knew this time together could blow up in my face. If it ended with me having to make a judgment, someone would leave the church. I also knew no one in the room was squeaky clean on this one. So, I began by reading Ephesians 4:32.

Sometimes we can feel it coming our way. Like a person who loses their footing on a steep climb, we feel our emotions slipping. Waves of anxiety can hit like a rogue wave, causing our souls to stumble.