Life
can be hectic for all of us, and when it is, we can be overwhelmed by our
emotions. That is a critical moment because we are tempted to believe our
feelings more than our thinking. What we feel may not be completely accurate.
In fact, we should not always trust our emotions because they can lead us
astray. However, emotions are a gift from God. He gave us the whole spectrum of
emotions: joy, excitement, happiness, surprise, and even anger, fear, and
sadness. Our emotions were given to us to help us feel life, whether that is
good or bad. They were never meant to have the final word in making our
important decisions. That direction comes from our minds. David said, “On
my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night” (Ps
63:6). That pictures a person sorting things out with their mind. We call that
Biblical thinking. We think our way out of difficult situations with our minds,
not with our feelings. Our emotions let us experience life in dimensions we
would never know otherwise. The problem is that if we let our emotions overrule
our thoughts, we will make wrong decisions.
My wife
and I have some very good emotions when we think back to this very day, 49
years ago. Our first son was born on this day. Of course, with any birth there
are a range of emotions. There is joy, love, excitement, and even moments
of awe. Then there is relief, one of the greatest of human emotions. That
relief comes when the baby finally comes, and the labor is done. My wife and I
were excited to bring home a little boy to join our two-year-old daughter, who
was the joy of our lives.
However,
in every situation, from childbirth to buying a new home, we need to use
biblical thinking to override our emotions. Bad decisions often result from
people reacting emotionally and not thinking them through. Someone may quit
their job, co-sign a loan, or tell someone off because their emotions ruled the
day. Emotions were given to us to experience life, not to tell us how to live.
Only when we stop and think do we really see clearly. Sometimes, when we are
overwhelmed by our feelings, we need to stop and think: “Be still, and know
that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the
earth” (Psalm 46:10).
