Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Chapter 3
Breaking down the Wall of Emotions
“Be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10
If there was a key verse for this book, Psalm 46:10 would have to be it. If I had a single, life verse, Psalm 46:10 would be that verse. But what does it mean to “Be still and know that I am God”? How do we, “Be still…”? How do we know God? It’s not just enough to know that He is God – we need to know God. So, how do we accomplish those things?
To “Be still” means to cause to heal, to relax, to let go, to abandon, to cease. To “know that I am God” means not only to know that He is God but most importantly, to know His character; to love Him and everything about Him, and to realize the He IS the only true and living God.
In order for us to be able to “Be still and know that I am God”, we are going to have to let go, to abandon all of the emotional baggage that we carry around with us. To do that, we must break down the wall of emotions that stand in the way of knowing God. That letting go, the total abandonment, that being still, that is how we are going to break down the wall of emotions that the burden we are carrying has built up.
You see, as we begin to “Be still…” that wall of emotions begins to break down, and as that wall of emotions begins to tumble, we begin to know God, and the more we know God, the more we are able to be still, and the more the wall tumbles. We must “Be still and know that I am God” if we want to continue to grow in Christ and keep our hearts in tune with His heart as they should be.
Emotional pain can be cause by so many different things. It may be caused by the death of a loved one as I and possibly you have experienced. Emotional pain may be caused by the inability to give birth to a child, the loss of a loved one due to circumstances other than death - to a worldly situation or to bad health. Emotional pain may be caused by the loss of our own good health, the loss of a job, financial problems, an abusive situation, the pain of past sins and worldly living, separation, divorce, hurtful actions or hurtful words whether they be intentional or unintentional. I could go on and on naming things that may cause us emotional pain. No doubt there are those of you reading this book and the particular situation that has caused your emotional pain was not listed. You know what that situation is and the things that we have and will discuss pertain to that emotional pain as well. Emotional pain can be as big or bigger than the death of a loved one, as small or smaller than unintentional hurtful words, and any thing in between.
If you have ever worked in full or part time Christian service, you may have thought when you started serving the Lord in that position that working with other Christians would be a perfect place of love and peace where everyone said nice things to each other and like the old song says, “…there never is heard a discouraging word…” It certainly should be and can be that way, but it not always is. More than likely, at some point along the way, the perception you had of that “wonderful workplace” was no doubt shattered. I’ve been in that situation. I should have known it was not a perfect place to work. After all, I was there – How could I have ever thought it would be perfect?
Allow me to share my experience. Several years ago, at a missions conference hosted by our church, there was the début of a project that I had worked on for several months. It was a special project, just for that conference, and I remember how an opportunity arose for my own emotions to get in the way of my growing in Christ – unintentional, hurtful words.
The Lord had given me a desire to somehow display all of the missionaries our church supported on a wall near the church foyer. Our church had just recently moved to this new facility and we did not have a representation of our missionaries anywhere except for their names bring listed on the back of the Sunday bulletin. I spent months researching each of our more than forty missionaries. I gathered facts about their field, the country they served in, and the mission board they served under. I collected a map of each country that was represented, a photograph of each missionary family. I listed each family member’s name, and recorded detailed contact information for each missionary. Then I framed all of the information, the map, and photograph for each missionary in an 8½ x 11 glass document holder – one for each missionary. The week before the conference began, a co-worker and I hung all forty plus displays around a beautiful world map that hung in the hallway near the church foyer. I had worked so hard and was truly pleased that I had done the best job I could do. I had seen a goal through to its end; months of hard work had culminated into a beautiful and informative display for all to enjoy.
The keynote speaker for the conference that year had no doubt seen bigger and better displays at other churches and made comments during a service that the display we had was not sufficient in size, insignificant actually, and pretty much pointless. He thought we should have poster size displays for each missionary hung in a more prominent place. He had no idea that just a week prior, we had nothing at all to represent the missionaries we supported – nothing except the Sunday bulletin. I thought we had taken a giant step forward from that.
When his comments rang out from the pulpit I felt as if all eyes were focused on me. I was not really hurt as much as I was embarrassed. Most of the people in the church probably did not even know that it was I who had put up that display. Even my own father and mother who attended the same church and were hosting the speaker and his wife in their home for the week didn’t know I was the one that had put up the display. My co-workers knew though, and other people would eventually find out.
Now there was an opportunity in full bloom for me to build up a wall of emotions and allow my growth in Christ to be halted or slowed. Emotional pain can be caused by something as little as unintentional, hurtful words and that wall of emotions can spring up quickly if we allow it too.
We have adequately defined emotional pain, but how do we define emotions? Here is was Webster’s dictionary says about emotions. It is “The affective aspect of consciousness; a state of feeling; physical reactions such as anger or fear, subjectively (which means we are all different and we are all effected differently by emotions) experienced as strong feeling and physiologically involving changes that prepare the body for immediate, vigorous action (which means that it effects our body).”
So, emotions affect conscious people – that’s us, we are all conscious, aren’t we? Emotions are a state of feeling that expresses itself physically; they cause a physical reaction. It is subjective; they affect us all differently. It invokes strong feeling, and physiologically involving changes. It prepares the body for immediate and vigorous action. It certainly can change us for the good or for the bad.
I’m sure you have heard someone refer to the “mind, will, and emotions”? Have you ever though of how much they are all related?
What effects my emotions will affect my mind
and the choices I make.
What effects my emotions will affect my will
and the actions I take.
My emotions will affect my whole self!
Basically, emotions are the way I feel. They are specific and intense and are a reaction to a particular event or series of events.
The connotation many times when one is speaking of emotions is that emotions are a bad thing. On the contrary! Emotions can be a bad thing or they can be a good thing. Happy is an emotion, love is an emotion, and so is joy. There is nothing wrong with being happy, in love, or joyful, is there? But you don’t meet people in therapy for those types of emotions, do you? Those kinds of emotions are easily controlled. So, they’re a good thing. However, emotions out of control are NOT a good thing.
Emotions out of control is when I allow
the way I feel to control me
instead of allowing what I know control me.
Emotion out of control is me allowing my feelings instead of my knowledge of the truth to control me and that is never a good thing.
Proverbs 3:5, says that I am not to lean on MY understanding. It says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto THINE own understanding.” Lean not on my understanding because my understanding is very limited and finite. My limited, finite understanding is not reliable, I cannot rely on it; it is not trustworthy, I cannot trust in it. I should not allow the way I FEEL to dictate what I DO – my actions. I should only allow the truth to dictate my actions.
Remember the last wedding you attended. The couple who were married, are they married as long as they “feel” like they are in love or is love an action, a choice we make, something we do even when we don’t feel like it? That couple that got married cannot allow the way they FEEL to dictate what they do. They cannot simply choose NOT to be married any longer the moment they don’t FEEL in love any more. If that was the case, probably none of us would be married – at least not for long.
I cannot allow the way I feel
to control the choices I make or the actions I take.
What does God’s Word say about emotions? Would you believe that the words “emotion” or “emotions” are not once mentioned in God’s Word? But the Bible does say in Hebrews 4:15 “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities…”
What are infirmities? Infirmities are trials, tribulations, weights, weaknesses. In II Corinthians 12:9, Jesus says, “…My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness….”
His strength is made perfect in our weakness.
His strength is sufficient for you and me.
Our infirmities make us defenseless, powerless, and helpless – they are burdens. Emotional pain could certainly be considered an infirmity.
There are different degrees of infirmities and emotional pain. Remember when we defined emotions? We read the word “subjectively” which means that we are all affected differently – in different ways, and to different degrees. What may devastate me emotionally, might not affect you at all, and what may devastate you emotionally, might not affect me at all.
An Illustration to validate my point: Do you like to garden? I care nothing about gardening. Oh, I appreciate a beautiful garden when I see one, don’t get me wrong. But as for maintaining a garden of my own, I don’t have the time nor desire to do so. Our two acres of un-manicured grass, pine trees, and shrubs is enough for me. My mother-in-law on the other hand, when she was alive was an avid gardener. She and my father-in-law had live for years on the same five-acre piece of property. Over time they turned this once over grown, wooded acreage into a beautifully manicured garden with strategically placed plants, flowers, trees, and shrubs covering it all.
I like computers. My husband bought me the latest and greatest lap top computer for Christmas a few years ago. It had all the bells and whistles; it was fast, light weight, top of the line, with a really big screen. I spent six weeks transferring everything from my home computer and my work computer to this new, beautiful piece of machinery which I was convinced would solve all of my problems, make my life much easier to manage, and help me to work more efficiently anywhere and everywhere I wanted to.
Now, to bring this illustration to a close, my mother-in-law was really into her gardening, she didn’t use a computer. I am really into computers, I don’t garden. Most all of us have probably seen on television or possibly in person the devastation that a tornado can do. If a tornado were to rip through my little two acres today, tearing up the grass, up rooting trees and shrubs, as long as it didn’t hurt me or my family, besides being a little shaken up because I’m not too fond of tornados, I’d be alright. On the other hand though, if the same thing had happened to my mother-in-law’s beautiful, five-acre, manicured garden, she, I’m sure, would have been devastated to loose what she and her husband have put so much of their time and energy into over many, many years.
Remember my new computer? Well, after weeks of transferring files, cleaning files off of the two old computers I was transferring from, loading new programs, deleting pre-loaded programs that I did not want, setting up everything just like I wanted it and thought it should be – the hard drive crashed. Brand new computer – the hard drive crashed – an unrecoverable crash! To say the least, I was devastated. How could this happen, it was a brand new computer? I had not backed up anything – yet. A stupid mistake, I know, and I knew better at the time too. I was in shock – years of work lost. Needless to say, I’m better about backing up now.
You see now how something that might devastate me emotionally, might not affect you at all, and how something that might devastate you emotionally, might not affect me at all.
We are all affected emotionally in different ways, in differing degrees. I have a co-worker who cries at the drop of a hat; I’ve probably cried twice in the last twenty years. We are different and affected differently. We can even be affected differently by the same emotional pain or burden.
As women (If you are a man reading this book, I apologize. I expected you to be a woman, but that’s ok – keep reading), I believe we have a special ability to perceive in others the presence of emotional pain or burdens. I believe also that we have a special ability within ourselves to feel emotional pain. Those abilities can be a help or a hindrance to us when it comes to breaking down the wall of emotions.
One thing we must realize through all of this though is that our abilitie to perceive and feel emotional pain are normally unique to us as women; men are created differently. In the next chapter we will discuss the difference between the emotions of a woman and that of a man.
“Be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10
If there was a key verse for this book, Psalm 46:10 would have to be it. If I had a single, life verse, Psalm 46:10 would be that verse. But what does it mean to “Be still and know that I am God”? How do we, “Be still…”? How do we know God? It’s not just enough to know that He is God – we need to know God. So, how do we accomplish those things?
To “Be still” means to cause to heal, to relax, to let go, to abandon, to cease. To “know that I am God” means not only to know that He is God but most importantly, to know His character; to love Him and everything about Him, and to realize the He IS the only true and living God.
In order for us to be able to “Be still and know that I am God”, we are going to have to let go, to abandon all of the emotional baggage that we carry around with us. To do that, we must break down the wall of emotions that stand in the way of knowing God. That letting go, the total abandonment, that being still, that is how we are going to break down the wall of emotions that the burden we are carrying has built up.
You see, as we begin to “Be still…” that wall of emotions begins to break down, and as that wall of emotions begins to tumble, we begin to know God, and the more we know God, the more we are able to be still, and the more the wall tumbles. We must “Be still and know that I am God” if we want to continue to grow in Christ and keep our hearts in tune with His heart as they should be.
Emotional pain can be cause by so many different things. It may be caused by the death of a loved one as I and possibly you have experienced. Emotional pain may be caused by the inability to give birth to a child, the loss of a loved one due to circumstances other than death - to a worldly situation or to bad health. Emotional pain may be caused by the loss of our own good health, the loss of a job, financial problems, an abusive situation, the pain of past sins and worldly living, separation, divorce, hurtful actions or hurtful words whether they be intentional or unintentional. I could go on and on naming things that may cause us emotional pain. No doubt there are those of you reading this book and the particular situation that has caused your emotional pain was not listed. You know what that situation is and the things that we have and will discuss pertain to that emotional pain as well. Emotional pain can be as big or bigger than the death of a loved one, as small or smaller than unintentional hurtful words, and any thing in between.
If you have ever worked in full or part time Christian service, you may have thought when you started serving the Lord in that position that working with other Christians would be a perfect place of love and peace where everyone said nice things to each other and like the old song says, “…there never is heard a discouraging word…” It certainly should be and can be that way, but it not always is. More than likely, at some point along the way, the perception you had of that “wonderful workplace” was no doubt shattered. I’ve been in that situation. I should have known it was not a perfect place to work. After all, I was there – How could I have ever thought it would be perfect?
Allow me to share my experience. Several years ago, at a missions conference hosted by our church, there was the début of a project that I had worked on for several months. It was a special project, just for that conference, and I remember how an opportunity arose for my own emotions to get in the way of my growing in Christ – unintentional, hurtful words.
The Lord had given me a desire to somehow display all of the missionaries our church supported on a wall near the church foyer. Our church had just recently moved to this new facility and we did not have a representation of our missionaries anywhere except for their names bring listed on the back of the Sunday bulletin. I spent months researching each of our more than forty missionaries. I gathered facts about their field, the country they served in, and the mission board they served under. I collected a map of each country that was represented, a photograph of each missionary family. I listed each family member’s name, and recorded detailed contact information for each missionary. Then I framed all of the information, the map, and photograph for each missionary in an 8½ x 11 glass document holder – one for each missionary. The week before the conference began, a co-worker and I hung all forty plus displays around a beautiful world map that hung in the hallway near the church foyer. I had worked so hard and was truly pleased that I had done the best job I could do. I had seen a goal through to its end; months of hard work had culminated into a beautiful and informative display for all to enjoy.
The keynote speaker for the conference that year had no doubt seen bigger and better displays at other churches and made comments during a service that the display we had was not sufficient in size, insignificant actually, and pretty much pointless. He thought we should have poster size displays for each missionary hung in a more prominent place. He had no idea that just a week prior, we had nothing at all to represent the missionaries we supported – nothing except the Sunday bulletin. I thought we had taken a giant step forward from that.
When his comments rang out from the pulpit I felt as if all eyes were focused on me. I was not really hurt as much as I was embarrassed. Most of the people in the church probably did not even know that it was I who had put up that display. Even my own father and mother who attended the same church and were hosting the speaker and his wife in their home for the week didn’t know I was the one that had put up the display. My co-workers knew though, and other people would eventually find out.
Now there was an opportunity in full bloom for me to build up a wall of emotions and allow my growth in Christ to be halted or slowed. Emotional pain can be caused by something as little as unintentional, hurtful words and that wall of emotions can spring up quickly if we allow it too.
We have adequately defined emotional pain, but how do we define emotions? Here is was Webster’s dictionary says about emotions. It is “The affective aspect of consciousness; a state of feeling; physical reactions such as anger or fear, subjectively (which means we are all different and we are all effected differently by emotions) experienced as strong feeling and physiologically involving changes that prepare the body for immediate, vigorous action (which means that it effects our body).”
So, emotions affect conscious people – that’s us, we are all conscious, aren’t we? Emotions are a state of feeling that expresses itself physically; they cause a physical reaction. It is subjective; they affect us all differently. It invokes strong feeling, and physiologically involving changes. It prepares the body for immediate and vigorous action. It certainly can change us for the good or for the bad.
I’m sure you have heard someone refer to the “mind, will, and emotions”? Have you ever though of how much they are all related?
What effects my emotions will affect my mind
and the choices I make.
What effects my emotions will affect my will
and the actions I take.
My emotions will affect my whole self!
Basically, emotions are the way I feel. They are specific and intense and are a reaction to a particular event or series of events.
The connotation many times when one is speaking of emotions is that emotions are a bad thing. On the contrary! Emotions can be a bad thing or they can be a good thing. Happy is an emotion, love is an emotion, and so is joy. There is nothing wrong with being happy, in love, or joyful, is there? But you don’t meet people in therapy for those types of emotions, do you? Those kinds of emotions are easily controlled. So, they’re a good thing. However, emotions out of control are NOT a good thing.
Emotions out of control is when I allow
the way I feel to control me
instead of allowing what I know control me.
Emotion out of control is me allowing my feelings instead of my knowledge of the truth to control me and that is never a good thing.
Proverbs 3:5, says that I am not to lean on MY understanding. It says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto THINE own understanding.” Lean not on my understanding because my understanding is very limited and finite. My limited, finite understanding is not reliable, I cannot rely on it; it is not trustworthy, I cannot trust in it. I should not allow the way I FEEL to dictate what I DO – my actions. I should only allow the truth to dictate my actions.
Remember the last wedding you attended. The couple who were married, are they married as long as they “feel” like they are in love or is love an action, a choice we make, something we do even when we don’t feel like it? That couple that got married cannot allow the way they FEEL to dictate what they do. They cannot simply choose NOT to be married any longer the moment they don’t FEEL in love any more. If that was the case, probably none of us would be married – at least not for long.
I cannot allow the way I feel
to control the choices I make or the actions I take.
What does God’s Word say about emotions? Would you believe that the words “emotion” or “emotions” are not once mentioned in God’s Word? But the Bible does say in Hebrews 4:15 “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities…”
What are infirmities? Infirmities are trials, tribulations, weights, weaknesses. In II Corinthians 12:9, Jesus says, “…My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness….”
His strength is made perfect in our weakness.
His strength is sufficient for you and me.
Our infirmities make us defenseless, powerless, and helpless – they are burdens. Emotional pain could certainly be considered an infirmity.
There are different degrees of infirmities and emotional pain. Remember when we defined emotions? We read the word “subjectively” which means that we are all affected differently – in different ways, and to different degrees. What may devastate me emotionally, might not affect you at all, and what may devastate you emotionally, might not affect me at all.
An Illustration to validate my point: Do you like to garden? I care nothing about gardening. Oh, I appreciate a beautiful garden when I see one, don’t get me wrong. But as for maintaining a garden of my own, I don’t have the time nor desire to do so. Our two acres of un-manicured grass, pine trees, and shrubs is enough for me. My mother-in-law on the other hand, when she was alive was an avid gardener. She and my father-in-law had live for years on the same five-acre piece of property. Over time they turned this once over grown, wooded acreage into a beautifully manicured garden with strategically placed plants, flowers, trees, and shrubs covering it all.
I like computers. My husband bought me the latest and greatest lap top computer for Christmas a few years ago. It had all the bells and whistles; it was fast, light weight, top of the line, with a really big screen. I spent six weeks transferring everything from my home computer and my work computer to this new, beautiful piece of machinery which I was convinced would solve all of my problems, make my life much easier to manage, and help me to work more efficiently anywhere and everywhere I wanted to.
Now, to bring this illustration to a close, my mother-in-law was really into her gardening, she didn’t use a computer. I am really into computers, I don’t garden. Most all of us have probably seen on television or possibly in person the devastation that a tornado can do. If a tornado were to rip through my little two acres today, tearing up the grass, up rooting trees and shrubs, as long as it didn’t hurt me or my family, besides being a little shaken up because I’m not too fond of tornados, I’d be alright. On the other hand though, if the same thing had happened to my mother-in-law’s beautiful, five-acre, manicured garden, she, I’m sure, would have been devastated to loose what she and her husband have put so much of their time and energy into over many, many years.
Remember my new computer? Well, after weeks of transferring files, cleaning files off of the two old computers I was transferring from, loading new programs, deleting pre-loaded programs that I did not want, setting up everything just like I wanted it and thought it should be – the hard drive crashed. Brand new computer – the hard drive crashed – an unrecoverable crash! To say the least, I was devastated. How could this happen, it was a brand new computer? I had not backed up anything – yet. A stupid mistake, I know, and I knew better at the time too. I was in shock – years of work lost. Needless to say, I’m better about backing up now.
You see now how something that might devastate me emotionally, might not affect you at all, and how something that might devastate you emotionally, might not affect me at all.
We are all affected emotionally in different ways, in differing degrees. I have a co-worker who cries at the drop of a hat; I’ve probably cried twice in the last twenty years. We are different and affected differently. We can even be affected differently by the same emotional pain or burden.
As women (If you are a man reading this book, I apologize. I expected you to be a woman, but that’s ok – keep reading), I believe we have a special ability to perceive in others the presence of emotional pain or burdens. I believe also that we have a special ability within ourselves to feel emotional pain. Those abilities can be a help or a hindrance to us when it comes to breaking down the wall of emotions.
One thing we must realize through all of this though is that our abilitie to perceive and feel emotional pain are normally unique to us as women; men are created differently. In the next chapter we will discuss the difference between the emotions of a woman and that of a man.
