The Emotional Checkup

Sometimes our emotions need a checkup or tune up.

Galatians 5 says the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self control. Many of these are emotions which means they have a spiritual root.

I believe the root that leads to a fruitful emotional state is our level of security in God's unfailing love for us and others. That he is present, willing, and able to help with anything we need.

How would we respond differently in life if we were very secure in the fact that God loves us and others, is with us and wants to help.

Here is what I believe our emotional standard should be...

Positive, grateful, peaceful, gentle, patient, hopeful, confident, decisive, encouraged, loving, and joyful consistently. And if something else pops up then we make quick adjustments.

This is our standard and life pushes our buttons to reveal areas of our hearts that need to be grounded and secured in God's love for us.

Here are some buttons that can get pushed...

• Build worst case scenarios in our minds or stories of people wronging us.
• Are we the same in all environments... home, work, under pressure, weather changes, etc
• Criticism, people judging or disrespecting you, others don’t acknowledge your skill or contributions
• People around you are in a bad mood, are too serious, are too playful, or don't worry about things like you do.
• Something doesn’t go as planned
• Doing things you may not enjoy
• When people let you down or you mess up
• Finances - people wrong you, finances get tight.
• Family - With spouse, kids, friends and extended family, parents
• Order - When things are a mess, doing paperwork, taxes, etc
• Health - Don’t feel well, hungry, tired, body composition or performance not improving
• Time - when you are pressed for time, bored
• Purpose - work isn’t going well, Not sure of the next step,
• Community - People rub you the wrong way

God has also given us control of our emotions along with several tools to reprogram our emotions.

Here are some of the tools...

• Communion
• Prayer
• The imagination
• Reframing perspectives and/or changing what we focus on
• Journaling