We all have emotions, and we always will. They are part of being human. Since that is true, I believe emotional stability should be one of the main goals of every believer. We should seek God to learn how to manage our emotions and not allow them to manage us. An excerpt from the Random House Dictionary states that emotions are “any of the feelings of joy, sorrow, hate, love, etc.” Think about this: You’re out shopping for a specific item you’re in need of. You’ve made a commitment to get out of debt. You’ve agreed to discipline yourself in the area of your spending and not purchase things you don’t need. But while shopping, you discover that the stores are having a big sale—50 percent off merchandise that is already marked down. What do you do? You get excited. The more you look around, the more excited you get. Emotions are rising higher and higher. They begin to move out-because part of the devil’s plan to ruin your life is for you to follow your emotions.
An emotional person is defined as: “one easily affected with or stirred by emotion; one who displays emotion; one with a tendency to rely on or place too much value on emotion; one whose conduct is ruled by emotion rather than reason.” I couldn’t agree more with that definition, and I want to add several personal observations I have made about people who are not stable emotionally:
A person who lives by emotions lives without principle.
You cannot be spiritual (walk in the spirit) and be led by emotions.
Emotions won’t go away, but you can learn to manage them.
You can have emotions, but you can’t always rely on them.
I urge you to make emotional maturity a priority in your life. If you do not believe you are doing a good job managing your emotions, begin to pray and seek God for emotional maturity. I also encourage you to learn what upsets you the most or prompts you to behave emotionally and watch out for those temptations.
To help you get started, let me mention several Scriptures:
Jeremiah 17:8 and Psalm 1:3 both instruct us to be like trees firmly planted.
First Peter 5:8, 9 teaches us to be well-balanced and temperate (self-controlled) to keep Satan from devouring us. According to these verses, if we want to withstand him, we need to be rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined.
Philippians 1:28 tells us to be constantly fearless when Satan comes against us.
Psalm 94:13 says God wants to give us power to stay calm in adversity.
All of these Scriptures are referring to being stable, so I encourage you to read them, meditate on them, and allow them to become ingrained in your thinking.
Think about It
In what ways can you begin to become more stable emotionally?
