How To Live Beyond Your Feelings

I have come to realize that society is becoming increasingly emotion based, allowing our feelings to take control of our actions. Because of this, it seems to be that society is out of alignment right now with the reality of the Bible and with God’s truth. Many times your feelings are not in alignment with the truth. Some truths in the Bible are even being neglected because people’s feelings are being hurt. Feelings are like echoes in responses to what your mind perceives. As I’ve been evaluating my own life I’ve been noticing the areas that my feelings are negatively affecting certain areas of my life. I wanted to share them so that we can hopefully be more intentional in distinguishing reality from emotions.

In the book of Jeremiah in the Bible, it says that your heart is deceitful above all things. In Proverbs chapter 4, it says to guard your heart above all else because everything you do flows from it. Our heart deals with our emotions and feelings, so if everything flows from our hearts, it is important to know how to handle our feelings, without letting them misguide or deceive us. How do you honor your heart while also not allowing your emotions to deceive you?

Let me preface this blog by making it clear that the point is not for you to ignore your feelings, or be fearful that they are deceiving you and you cannot trust your own heart. I am not claiming that logic is more important than your feelings, or that you should be less sensitive. Most prophets are incredibly sensitive because they are sensitive to the Spirit. Many of us are moved by compassion because of God’s love in us, and that is a beautiful thing. I believe that sensitivity is good because I believe it gives you a greater capacity to love. Pay attention to what moves your heart; much of the time it is a sign of where God is leading you. We have to act on our beliefs, which come from God’s Word.

The point I am making is that your feelings need to be presented to the Lord; my desire is for it to become more normal to ask God what He thinks about your emotions, rather than acting upon emotion. My goal is not for you to feel better. My goal is for us to be more obedient to where the Lord is calling us over being more obedient to our emotions. The goal is to be in alignment with God’s truth and His Word.

In my personal life, there were some ways that I allowed my feelings to misguide me, leading to disobedience and listening to the enemy's lies of fear. One of the areas that letting our emotions guide us can be an issue is when it comes to God’s calling for our individual lives. The Lord asked me to make YouTube videos a year ago; though I began making them, I struggled because I did not want to make a video unless I felt God in it. I did not want to do anything without Him; and while the sentiment is nice, it was only causing me to not be consistent, and to not put videos out that perhaps God wanted me to, in order to help someone else. I expressed this thought process to my mentor and she told me, “God already told me to do YouTube so just do it, you don’t have to “feel” God every time.”

Before God asked me to start doing YouTube, He asked me to write a book. My immediate thought was that I did not want to be because I did not feel qualified or knowledgeable enough to do so. I am so thankful that I chose obedience and wrote “Handle with Care,” because if I hadn’t, my life would look so different right now. I have no clue where I would be. Obedience over feeling always wins; though the process is trying, perhaps slower than I desire, and faith building, I wouldn’t trade it.

Emotions are not meant to be the thing we act upon, they are only meant to be a gauge in life to point you to the right direction. Submit your feelings to the Lord! Your feelings are a signal that need to be acknowledged, but you need God's truth behind it.

I recently went to a conference at Global Awakening and when Randy Clark, the founder of it, was praying for an impartation into everyone there, I felt absolutely nothing in my Spirit. I asked the Lord if He was doing anything to me, and I felt like He told me that He placed more inside of me and then I felt like I heard, “It is finished.” I can’t explain it but it was like I knew that God just deposited something on the inside of me. I didn’t feel anything, I just knew that something shifted. The next day, I prayed for six people and God gave me specific and accurate prophetic words for each one of them. This was so exciting for me because three years prior, God was using me greatly in the prophetic gift, and for the past three years it had been feeling like I could no longer access it.

So, how do we honor our feelings, while dealing with our emotions healthily? Other than presenting your feelings to God and asking Him what He thinks about them, think about your answer to this question: Who are you living for? If it’s for yourself, then you will follow your emotions because you want to protect yourself. If you truly desire to live for God, then you need to submit your emotions to the Lord so that He can transform you, because He is the only one who can.

What do you do to prevent your emotions from distorting the truth or misleading you? Other than guarding your heart, ask God to purify your perceptions of His truth and to transform your feelings so that they are in sync with the truth. Pay close attention to the enemy influencing your feelings and ask the Lord if what you’re feeling is in alignment with Him and His Word. You can also ask a mentor or people that you trust if they agree with what you’re feeling the way that I asked my mentor about my feelings on making YouTube videos.

If the springs of life really do flow from your heart, how can you have an abundant life if you don’t pay attention and deal with your feelings? Guard your heart, protect it, and watch what comes in and what comes out.