S03E018, Habits, Peace and Feelings, Andy B 2 Minute Video

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God made us in His image. And God is emotional – just look at the life of Jesus, who is God, and you see the perfect Man, with emotions!

So emotions and feelings, clearly, are how Go made us to be! But how much credence should we give to our feelings and emotions?

Ever walked out your front door feeling on top of the world, to find you have a flat tyre? Your mood changes, and you’re suddenly nothing but darkness and gloom ahead.

Ever finished a large meal, felt stuffed, spotted the cake trolley and thought you were hungry again? Those are your feelings changing.

Which is why we can’t trust to our feelings, although we should always see them as a useful temperature gauge.

But just like sensors and gauges in cars, or even the directions of your recently updated SatNav – we have to learn to interpret what we’re seeing and hearing, through the lens of someone we trust.

That’ll be a mechanic for your car, and God for everything else!

But, if God made us with feelings, so how do we break the cycles of habitually doing stuff we don’t want to do, and feel the wonderful, beautiful, glorious peace of God flowing through us?

Just a thought...

Andy B

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So, Habits, Peace and Feelings in another Andy B 2 Minute Video.

And I was chatting with one of our sons about habits and how they form, and I remembered a guy called Doctor Neil T Anderson, erm - who created Freedom in Christ Ministries - and he was talking about, kind of the heart of why he, he worked on that particular ministry and it's all about breaking the habits: how do we get people to stop doing what they don't want to do anymore?

And it's all about habits and things that we habitually do - start[s] with 6repetitions; if you do some't 6 times you've formed a habit for good or for bad.

And if you want to break that habit, it's 6 weeks of not doing it, and you can undo that habit.

It's really easy to make a habit.

It's actually really easy to break a habit - it just takes a bit more time.

6 times could be in a really short space of time, but 6 weeks is 6 weeks - speaking generally.

Emotions and feelings change overtime!

Erm, when you wake up in the morning, you might be feeling great about the day ahead and you might get up and find you've got a flat tyre and, all of a sudden, you're feeling quite bad about the day.

Your emotions can change so dramatically - our mood, our continence, our outlook on life can change so dramatically because of exterior stuff that's going on - like a flat tyre.

The problem with emotions is that they change and they change a lot!

So when you're going through puberty, for example, your hormones change in your body; how you see yourself, and feel about yourself in the world, dramatically changes, and definitively changes - it doesn't stay the same!

But Jesus had emotions, so emotions are a good thing! God made us in his image. Jesus is God therefore us, having emotions, is how God wanted us to be; how He made us to be; how He designed us to be - when He handmade us, and spoke us into being.

Well what's that got to do with peace?

Well, if you're trying to find peace in who you are; in yourself; in your situation the situation gonna change; you're going to change - in terms of your feelings, and you won't find peace, ever!

And we see that in the world today. We see mental health crises everywhere.

People are drinking and doing drugs and trying to find anything that'll find some value and meaning, so they can find peace and who they are.

And it doesn't work.

What does work?

As a Christian, I can state this with absolute truth - is if you know Jesus Christ; if you follow Him; put yourself right with Him; if you've got your heart reconciled to Jesus Christ - reconciled to God - you will find peace, as you align your life with Him; as you become more like Him.

Don't just dump your emotions. Emotions are important. God made you and me with emotions: [that] he values our emotions.

But don't let your emotions and feelings change who you are. Erm, use it as a thermometer. But if you're wanting to find peace in you are as a person go to God; get into scripture; follow Jesus - and you will find peace.

As you make Him the plumb line in your life, you will find that that peace follows and that peace is not affected by the stuff that's going on your life or how you feel.

Just a thought.