Come into God's care

I have felt it so strongly to tell you, don't ignore God prompting your heart! Don’t fear how He created you to react to the events and circumstances.

As Dr Caroline Leaf says; “You cannot control the events and circumstances around you, but you can control how you react to them.”

Not by trying to make yourself better or by numbing how you feel, but by looking to the Lord!

Recently, I've heard Christians around me talk about how they don't want to be ruled by their flesh. In the sense that they are avoiding all ways that their feelings and emotions are arising and a fear that they don’t want to be driven by them.

And in all fairness, I can understand why this fear has risen following years of a rising mental health pandemic… But this fear is irrational and so far from the truth.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
Psalm 139vs13~14

God created our entire being on purpose, for a purpose. Our internal and external experiences are simultaneously connected and real. Our feelings and emotions, along with our imagination, dreams, desires, hopes and wishes can and should all be brought into submission under Christ and sanctified to be used for good in our lives as we walk a life of faith. As we know that our physical body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that body includes our internal, mental and emotional world.

If God didn't want us to relate to our experiences around our intuitive reactions, He wouldn't have created us with such deep internal responses and such intense emotional capacity.

But it is for this that we are designed to bring our experiences into the guidance of the Father for them to grow in health and wellness and to support us in goodness!

Fear, left untreated, will drive you to numbness. And when responses rise up, they will only provoke further anxiety and the tension of building uncertainty with how to deal with our inner world.We must learn to rest in the assurance that everything God created in us is designed, in godliness, to lead us to our best self. Once we bring our internal world into submission and direction under Christ, we will learn that walking through life and allowing responses and reactions to arise can be the most life giving action.

Jesus wept, Jesus felt sorrow, Jesus got angry, Jesus pleaded. But Jesus didn't walk around sorrowful and depressed. In a human body, completely God and yet completely man, you better believe that He was faced with the dilemma of human response. It's a matter of choosing what you do with your response.

"The problem happens when I let my feelings take the lead in my life... and when does that happen? It happens primarily when I've gotten my eyes off God. And so God no longer is the big view, my feelings are the big view and God gets reframed by my feelings versus my feelings getting reframed by God."  (Louie Giglio)

It's not about trying to hide what you're feeling or change how your personality naturally reacts, it's about seeking God above all else, putting Him above every other area of your life and believing that He is a good God who will truly guide and direct every part of you.

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Matthew 6vs33~34

If you feel the weight of the world, its pulling and tormenting your peace, turn again to the Lord. As you turn close to Him, He will come in close to you and when He is close to you, nothing will be more important that following His ways and when you walk in His ways, your heart, mind, will and emotions are going to follow into His care as well.

"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."
James 4vs7~8

But how do we walk in this way when we are in a world of depression, confusion, hatred and offence. We don't! We don't conform to the way the world is but we conform to the Lord and His ways. The ways that are higher, lighter, more pleasing and so very good.

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
Romans 12vs2

Take heart and have hope. Because you were made for so much more, so much greater and a far higher grasping of joy than you could comprehend. And this way of walking will be so evident when you draw close to the Lord, His way and His truth will grow undeniably desirable that you will never want to become a statistic of the Lord but a free and joyful child of the Kingdom of God!

~ X ~