62 | Regulators, Mount Up!

This week Susette Magana shares a sermon on recognizing and accepting our emotions, learning to regulate them and integrating them in our relationship with God.

Emotions (all of them) are normal.

• EMOTIONS and BEHAVIORS are different. When we feel something, we then make a choice to act.

“Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God.” Dan Allendar.

• God created us to experience a full range of emotions, but not to be subject to them (let them run our lives).
• If we don’t deal with painful emotions, like anger, fear, sadness, they can become WAYS OF LIFE or part of our IDENTITY, like being resentful, anxious, or hopeless.

Ezekiel 36:26 NLT I will take your stony, stubborn heart, and give you a tender, responsive heart.

• Emotional regulation: Once we know what’s happening, we can learn to regulate it.
• Our Body: deep breathing, exercise, muscle relaxation for tension
• Our Mind/Heart: Acknowledging our pain & fear, resisting shame, & asking for help.

1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”

and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for he has been good to me.

The soul seeks harmony, connection, and integration.

Dallas Willard

PROBLEM:

DISINTEGRATION: When these parts of our soul feel disconnected (from self or others) or overwhelmed.

If we don’t deal with painful emotions, like anger, fear, sadness, they can become WAYS OF LIFE or part of our IDENTITY, like being resentful, anxious, or hopeless. These are more postures that our soul takes than emotional responses.

In order to NOT fall into these ways of living, we need to acknowledge them or confess them before God and trusted people, and work to keep our hearts and minds tender & responsive towards others.

Ezekiel 36:26 NLT

I will take your stony, stubborn heart, and give you a tender, responsive heart.

WHAT IF:

• We could feel a full range of emotions, without self-judgement, but that we have enough wisdom to not “REACT” to them, but to “make decisions & respond” when we feel them.
• What if emotions were a normal part of our daily life, instead of something that we avoid or demand attention for?
• What if, as the family of God, we invited a full range of emotions into our prayers, song, and relationships?