I want to start this post off with something I read in a book that I am currently working through and slowly digesting. It was one sentence I passed over as I first dove into the book, but partway through chapter 3 I decided to return to the beginning and take my time reading. I don’t know if you have ever experienced something I like to call a “right now word/message” but I am currently in a season where God has brought a message of freedom and renewal into an area of my life that I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. In fact what I am sharing today only pertains to one small area that fits into a much larger wrestling. Without realizing I had come to believe that this way of life was just my normal and that what I experienced day in and day out was just a part of my personality or predisposition, and that there wasn’t even an option for a different way of living – for me at least. Steve Backlund from Igniting Hope ministries says in his book Fully Convinced, “If we don’t know what our problem is, then we have a real problem! This is a book that will help us recognize, in a deeper way, the importance of prioritizing our beliefs as the key to breakthrough and seeing our dreams fulfilled. It will help many overcome what I call the epidemic of negative emotions that result from believing lies.” Right then and there, as I read these words, I had a Holy Spirit moment. Suddenly my eyes were opened to see that what I have thought is normal, i.e. the overwhelming presence of negative emotions, isn’t normal, although it is common. Not only is the onslaught of negative emotions not normal, but there is also tremendous hope that our emotions can actually experience transformation based on what we are believing.
Not that long ago I had the opportunity to spend some quality time with people I love. Over that time many wonderful memories were made and beautiful conversations took place. Not always easy conversations, but beautiful in their vulnerability and candidness. One night afterwards I found myself laying awake in bed reflecting on some of these conversations and I felt particularly reflective on certain individuals and their openness in sharing about their struggles. My feelings toward these individuals were compassionate ones, or at least what I thought was compassion. I am a person that naturally roots for the underdog. If I’m watching a sports game with my husband and son, even if it’s a team I don’t like as much, I will find myself cheering for whichever team is losing. I just naturally gravitate to wanting to see whoever is in the perceived weaker position strengthened. The tears came easily as I felt the weight of their vulnerability. This is not an uncommon experience for me. In fact, it’s quite normal. But in light of recently receiving the revelation that an onslaught of negative emotions is the result of believing lies, I became acutely aware that the compassion I felt seemed to be tinged with an overwhelming sense of sadness and even hopelessness. This doesn’t seem to be the compassion of Christ.
Jesus Christ was moved with compassion when he saw the crowds streaming towards him because they were like sheep without a shepherd (Mark 6:34), and it didn’t cause him to be overcome with a heavy sadness. His compassion moved him into a time of powerful teaching and hope-filled vision that would bring release for the crowd. His compassion led him to “tap into” heavenly perspective which not only nourished the souls of people but also allowed him to perceive incredible solution for feeding a great multitude of people with a very limited amount of natural resources. He had no downward spiral of negative emotion. As I lay in bed I thought to myself “why does this emotional experience of compassion (which is common to me) feel so sad and overwhelming?” I then had a revelation for the first time, after feeling this feeling so so many times in my life, that this compassion was muddied. This heaviness and overwhelming sadness was the result of partnering with SHAME. I was partnering with a spirit of shame as I reflected on the vulnerability of these individuals. As my heart broke for people I care about and how they were being perceived, I realized the sadness I was feeling was not holy sadness but sadness that came from feeling like weaknesses had been exposed and that these weaknesses would affect reputation and favour with others. I was agreeing with a spirit of shame that these weaknesses define a person and that now being exposed would cause these people I care about to be thought of as “less than” in the eyes of others. I was renewing my mind with the lie that weaknesses (and especially the exposing of weaknesses) are something to be ashamed of, and that winning the approval of others was not something God worked in our lives but that it was our job to so manipulate our lives as to win peoples’ favour and positive opinion about us. Wow. My sadness started to break as I began to renew my mind with the truth that God is able to give us favour with those we need favour with and that we stand now in Christ with no condemnation (Romans 8:1-2). My emotions actually started to transform as the Holy Spirit led my mind to engage with truth rather than a lie. It reminds me again that my feelings don’t validate truth, they just validate what I believe to be true. Suddenly my compassion, which had become muddied with shame, experienced cleansing that liberated my prayer life – as I lay in bed my emotions forsook heavy sadness and panic and they began to be clothed with joyful and hope-filled expectation of God’s goodness in these peoples’ lives. Heaviness lifted from my spirit and thanksgiving arose from my soul as my mind underwent renewal.
This reaffirms for me once again that what I feel in my emotions is primarily guided by what I am believing. If you want prayer or would like resources to take on the beast of negative emotion and experience transformation in your beliefs, emotions, circumstances and influence, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
If you want to hear more about the book Fully Convinced, check out the link above for a recent podcast from Steve Backlund.