You don’t have to act the way you feel, and if you do most people will think that you are childish, selfish, dumb, a bitter old man, divisive, grumpy, and a person to avoid. So what do I do with these emotions in me? Ignore them, stuff them, pretend they don’t exist? God cares about my emotions, I can dump everything on Him, and there is no fear that He will reject me. Most of the Psalms are a roller coaster of emotional experience and expression, and most of the Psalms are a prophecy of the coming Messiah, which clearly indicates that Jesus was a very emotional man. When I am depressed I tell the Lord, and I talk to Him about why and what can I do now. When I am angry I unload on the Lord again, and I pray for those I am angry at, sometimes I pray that God will give them a severe case of diarrhea for 6 months. When I am afraid I pray and ask God for boldness. God knows my heart, and He knows the emotions that I am feeling, He understands and fills my heart with His peace and joy. The key is spend time with God everyday, and talk to Him about your day, talk to Him about everything.
Probably one of my most repeated life principles is, “I don’t have to act the way I feel”. I also repeated it to my kids as they grew up more times than anybody could count, and I have repeated that phrase in my teaching and preaching ministry hundreds if not thousands of times. Our emotions are up and down, good and bad, strong and intense, and then no where to be found. We have little control over how we feel from one minute to the next, they are mostly the result of events, circumstances, and words. We can be feeling like a real winner and then as a result of someone’s comment can be in a major blue funk in the next minute. Our feelings are neither good or bad, they are automatic responses to life. We feel happy, angry, sad, depressed, confused, hurt, embarrassed, critical, and passionate. Allowing our emotions to be the dictator of our life is very foolish and immature. Acting the way we feel makes us a victim of life circumstances that we usually have little control over. People who act the way they feel have many strained relationships because they are not fun to be around, God doesn’t use them much to do anything significant or important because they can’t be trusted. But, that being said, it is very difficult not to act even a little bit the way we are feeling, especially when the emotion is strong. It takes great self-control to do the right thing, say the right thing, and even think the right thing when our emotions are pushing us to do the wrong thing. For me the key to staying in control in spite of raging emotions is to talk to myself in a wise way, in a way that persuades myself to be kind, talk nice, no anger, patient listening, and honoring to others. I have Bible verses memorized that I can meditate on that tremendously help in my self-talk. Some days I do pretty good and then other days I am continually doing and saying things that are provoked by my emotions. It is a daily battle and it is a battle I am committed to winning for the sake of my witness for Jesus and so my relationships will be healthy and growing in love.
I recently filled out my mail in ballot. The single most important issue to me in this election or any election is abortion. I don’t vote for anyone that is even a little bit lukewarm on this issue. I believe plain and simple that abortion is murder, that life begins at the point of conception. Any nation that defends abortion on the basis of freedom to choose is sick, and will sooner or later experience the judgment of God. There are a lot of other issues discussed, and people get fairly heated in debating them, but all those other things are incredibly insignificant compared to the blatant killing of unborn children in the name of freedom of choice. I have been praying almost every day for years that God would heal our land. I think that the only solution and hope is a national revival, which will take a lot of followers of Jesus committing time to pray faithfully.
I am having a wonderful time building a go kart with my two, 10 year old grandsons. Today we got the back axle installed complete with a tire at both ends of the axle, seated, sealed, and full of air, compliments of starting fluid and some late night explosions. We also got the motor installed, lined up and squared with the axle, with a drive chain cut the perfect length and installed as well. Put motor oil and gas in the engine and it started the first pull. I have a belt drive torque converter/Transmission bolted to the engine, and as the engine ran it worked perfectly. I had the back end lifted up sitting on a bucket so the tires could spin freely as it ran. Wow, I was so impressed with our creation! I was basking in the success of our project when all of a sudden I realized that the tires were spinning in the wrong direction, it was going backwards. I had failed to pull the starter rope and see which direction the engine turned before doing all the work getting everything on. I can’t believe I did that!!
On October 27th, the day of my birthday everyone in my family was busy so we postponed celebrating my 70th birthday until tonight. All 5 of the local kids, their spouse and their kids came over, and we had barbecued elk burger, vegetables, and apple pie with ice cream. Everyone sang a special song for me complete with 4 ukuleles, a flute, trombone, and a drum. Afterwards everyone sat around and told stories of the growing up years with lots of laughter. It was a very enjoyable evening, and a great birthday party. As the kids told stories I was surprised at how many of them I didn’t remember. Kind of sad thinking about all the years of raising our 8 kids and realizing that I have forgotten most of it. I wonder sometimes if I will have a perfect memory when I get to heaven so I can remember every detail of every experience with the kids, Patty, and the church. I suspect there are some memories I would rather forget. One thing for sure is that we will have so much more understanding of why things happened the way that they did. So many mysteries that exist now will all be cleared up when we see things from God’s perspective. The most important principle to follow while living life is “keep your eyes on the finish line”. The finish line for those who know and follow Jesus is heaven, eternity with God. When we focus on eternity our joy goes up, our ability to manage pressure goes up, our willingness to take a risk goes up,
I like the title of this blog. We all will go through tough times eventually, some more than others. I believe God plans those events, and brings them into our life to grow our character. If the purpose of the trials results in significant character growth we have suffered successfully, but if the suffering results in bitterness, self-pity, grumbling, and conflict with others we have failed miserably and are a failure. The worst part of failing these events from a human perspective is that now we have to take the test over again until we pass it. I flunked a very important test in college, in fact it was so important that I couldn’t graduate without passing it. My professor said we can arrange for another test to be administered, but understand something, the next test is more difficult than the first one, and if you flunk it again the next will be even more difficult yet, and if you flunk that one you will need to take another full semester of classes in order to graduate. I remember thinking, whooeee, I wish I had studied more on that first test. How do you suffer successfully? The first step is to recognize that, this is what life is about, so get over thinking when you have a major trial that God is being unloving and unfair, He is getting us fit for eternity, how is that uncaring.
I had a great time this evening passing out candy to kids that came to our “Trunk or Treat” event in our church parking lot. I brought my 24 foot dory that I built and had my cooler full of candy. I sat in my lawn chair drinking coffee handing out candy with the other had, giving extra to any kid who said nice boat. Had many conversations with Dad’s about boats and fishing. I heard there was over a 1,000 that came through. Great weather and very nice people. If I were still a parent of little kids I would certainly prefer taking them to a church parking lot with a bunch of decorated up cars, busses, fire trucks, police swat vans, and boats where they probably got as much if not more candy than they would have walking the streets knocking on doors of houses. Then there was the bonus of free hot dogs, chips, and hot chocolate in the gym along with a bouncy house. I was proud to be part of such a great event.
Pastor Dee's Blog 