Luke 6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

People who know me say I don’t like emotions. That’s incorrect. I think emotions can lie and we need perspective. Think about it, I can be having a good day, have one bad thing happen and emotionally crumble into agreements of “I never have a good day” and “Something always ruins my fun”, then receive good news and change again. I become a shaky person who doesn’t have control of situations when my emotions are guided by circumstances that are temporary. Of course we cry and grieve when we have a deep loss, but if not getting our way causes a good cry we have a problem. Of course we rejoice at weddings, the birth of a baby, and celebrations of many kinds but if that is our only high point in life we have a problem.

I read this today and thought it was so right on so I wanted to share:

Out-of-control emotions are the product of a heart which is not saturated with Scripture. The way to control our emotions is to control our minds, renewing them by the daily input of scriptural principles, the knowledge of God, and meditation on His attributes. Then the Holy Spirit, along with the Word of God, will bring about appropriate emotions based on truth. When we immerse ourselves in the only means of our sanctification—the Bible—we arm ourselves with the only effective weapon against out-of-control emotions. Then we can control our emotions instead of them controlling us. In themselves, emotions are not unbiblical, but they are indications of what is in our hearts. ~Matthew Houdmanm

Often the overreaction we have to people emotionally is not in what they have said to us but rather it’s filtered through a mindset of the unresolved issues we have about how we feel about ourselves. Sadly, this is not something God caused or created in us. This is something we are refusing to let go of in spite of the Holy Spirit’s work in us.

Unfortunately, as our society becomes more self-absorbed, we will continue to be extremely emotional. When we are taught that we get a trophy every time we go up to bat we are in for a big wakeup call when we go to our first job and they tell us not to do something the way we’re used to doing it. We will take it as a criticism and crumble and quit. When we don’t get to leave our toys on the floor and not have someone calls us on it, we develop a ideal where everyone needs to accept our behavior and any type of correction to the contrary, regardless of how it is conveyed, is processed through an overly sensitive mindset as evil. We need to teach how put things in perspective. It isn’t always that serious of a deal. Unless we are ruled by our emotions.