When Feelings Take Over
God gave us our emotions. He designed us as people with feelings. It’s good to have feelings—so long as we’re not driven by them.
Aah, therein lies the problem. We are too often driven by our feelings.
Let’s use the example of your day off. There’s the house to clean, but you don’t feel like it this morning. You’d rather binge watch another season on Netflix. Or the yard needs to be mowed, but you don’t feel like getting out in the heat to do it. (But you do feel like playing a round of golf—in the same heat).
Meanwhile, the dirty dishes stack up and the neighbors start a petition because of your unsightly yard. All because you didn’t feel like it.
We let our feelings dictate our actions. We see before us a slew of options, and we let our feelings choose for us. What do I feel like doing? Dallas Willard points out that, in our contemporary culture, we are overwhelmed with decisions and we let our feelings make our decisions for us.[1]
As followers of Christ, we are called to lives of self-control, but there’s no self-control where fickle feelings are calling the shots.
Let me stress in case someone forgot what I wrote moments earlier: feelings are not necessarily bad. And playing golf or watching Netflix is not bad. But when other matters are more pressing or needful at the moment, feelings need to take a backseat to action. And that calls for self-control.
When Jesus visited in the home of Mary and Martha, Mary sat at Jesus’s feet and Martha took care of the kitchen and bringing seconds to Peter. Jesus rebuked Martha, not because she was busying cleaning up after the disciples, but because in that moment, the greater—the more needful—thing was just to sit and listen as Mary was doing. For many of us, it would take self-control to get up and clean the kitchen, but for Martha, it took self-control to let the kitchen duties go idle for a time. (See Luke 10:38-42). As King Solomon said,
“There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven” (Eccl. 3:1).
It takes self-control—a by-product of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives (Gal. 5:22-23)—to know when it’s a good time to veg out in front of the TV and when we need to tackle some responsibilities. Dallas Willard said it well:
“Self-control is the steady capacity to direct yourself to accomplish what you have chosen or decided to do and be, even though you ‘don’t feel like it.’ Self-control means that you, with steady hand, do what you don’t want to do (or what you want not to) when that is needed and do not do what you want to do (what you ‘feel like’ doing) when that is needed. In people without rock-solid character, feeling is a deadly enemy of self-control and will always subvert it.”[2]
I want to honor Christ with my actions and my feelings. I have discovered that contentment comes not from doing whatever I feel like doing, but from what I know is right in that moment. There is a joy is doing what is right and doing it well. (And later on, if I plop in front of the TV, I don’t have that nagging guilt of what I should’ve done.)
Practically, for me that means I begin my day with the Word, prayer, and a desire to know what God would have me do. I desire His Spirit to give me the self-control and discipline to do what He desires for that day. And therein lies my joy and contentment.
“There is nothing better for a person than to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. I have seen that even this is from God’s hand, because who can eat and who can enjoy life apart from him?” (Eccl. 2:24-25).
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[1] Dallas Williard, Renovations of the Heart, chapter 7.
[2] Ibid.
