A Crazy Roller-Coaster Ride

Maybe some of you ladies can identify with me when I say sometimes our emotions can take us on these crazy ups and downs. Sometimes it feels like you're on a seemingly endless roller-coaster that you never asked to get on in the first place.

You know, this last week I've been trying to stop this roller coaster that I'm on and get on more stable ground. God has been revealing to me how much I have been letting my emotions take the reign, and how these "roller coaster" emotions aren't just no big deal.

I think one of the easiest spots for the enemy to attack us with is our our emotions. And when we are not constantly coming to God and re-surrendering our emotions and our lives to Him our desires quickly take over and control us. They take us up and down and around so quickly, working hard for us to build our life around them. And we forsake a life of total abandonment and service to Christ for an easy life of "living in the moment", you know, "follow your heart" because our feelings and desires are telling us it’s the only way to be happy.

But we are given so many warnings to constantly be on guard: 1 Thessalonians 5:6, Titus 1:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:8, 1 Peter 5:8, Titus 2:12, 1 Peter 1:13, to name a few. Our life is no longer all about us. We have given Jesus Lordship in our lives, we don't share that title!

Christ said, “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation” (Matt. 26:41). We must live in such a way that we are constantly bringing our heart to the Lord, asking Christ to change it, confessing your sins and asking Him to show you the secret sins of your life too. Just as David prayed to God in Psalm 19, "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression.

We must joyfully yield to Jesus Christ, trust His perfect will, and building your life and focus around Him rather than the pursuit of our own desires.

Our eyes must only seek the pleasures of Heaven. And we must approach every circumstance in life like Christ, knowing that our Heavenly Father is handling the situation. We need only to yield ourselves fully to Him. There is great joy in this abandoned life – so much so that we can truly come to embrace the pain and trials and unanswered question as a gift from our Father, rather than resenting them as an unwanted punishment of some sort.

I'm not saying our emotions are always a bad thing, but I am saying that we must continually bring them to Him and ask the Spirit to guide our heart and not our emotions. Keeping our eyes fixed on Christ doesn't come naturally or easily, Michelle wrote in her blog a wonderful post on Practical Ideas for Biblical Discipline that I would encourage you all to read. (Michelle is a very caring and wise young women whom I am blessed to know.)

"Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, So our eyes look to the LORD our God..."(Psalm 123:2)

Blessings,
Ashlin

P.S. I probable won't be blogging near as much as usual because the laptop died and I'm left with a big, slow computer to use. So blogging doesn't seem important enough to spend that much time on! Just thought I'd tell you ahead of time, in case you wonder! =)