You, Who try the hearts and emotions and thinking powers, are a righteous God.
(Psalms 7:9)
The psalmist David speaks about emotions and thoughts in the same sentence because they are intimately linked to each other. We must understand the power of thoughts in order to learn how to manage our emotions.
One statistic says that although thousands of people make decisions at the first of the year to start exercising and they go pay money to sign up at a gym, only 16 percent of them actually show up and follow through. This is a perfect example of a situation where a person wanted to do something, made a decision to do it, and then allowed his thoughts and feelings to become a dictator in his life. God has given us free will, and the truth is that our thoughts and feelings cannot rule us if we don’t let them, but most people don’t know that.
One day in December, Mark looked at himself in the mirror after taking a shower and thought, I’ve gained weight over the past couple of years and I’m out of shape. I really need to do something. But the holidays are coming, so I guess I’ll just enjoy eating whatever I want until January. Then I’ll start on a diet and exercise program. Mark felt good about his decision and wanted to make a commitment so he went by the gym the next day and signed up. He gave a credit card number at the desk and agreed to pay $45 a month for the next year so he could use the facility. Mark left the gym feeling good about his decision.
He enjoyed eating all he wanted over the holidays and kept telling himself and other people that in January he was going on a diet-and-exercise program. January came, the holidays were over, and he woke up on the first Monday of the month and told himself, I will go to the gym today. He headed off to work and even took gym clothes and tennis shoes with him. At work that day he was invited to go to lunch and it happened to be his favorite restaurant. He thought, This is going to be hard because they have that lasagna I love, and that sure doesn’t fit into my diet plan. It never occurred to Mark to just turn down the invitation if he felt he could not go there and stay on his diet. He just assumed that the temptation would be too much, and in reality, had already planned for failure.
The first mistake that Mark made was thinking that resisting the temptation to eat lasagna was going to be too hard for him to do. He could have thought, I want to go to lunch with my friends, but I am going to stay on my diet. I can do it! I love their lasagna, but I can say no to it. You see, our thoughts prepare us for action, and since Mark had already thought it would be hard for him, when he got into the restaurant and started staring at the lasagna on the menu, he could not resist the temptation because he had already decided mentally what he would do. His feelings hooked up with his thoughts, and the two of them together made his decision for him.
All the carbohydrates in the lasagna made Mark sleepy that afternoon and by the time he got off work he thought, Maybe I’ll wait and start exercising later this week. After all, I already messed up by eating the lasagna, and I am really tired today anyway. Of course his feelings agreed with the plan to go home and rest. They assured him that they did not feel like exercising, and waiting until another day sounded wonderful.
April rolled around, and Mark still had not gone on a diet or started exercising. He tried a few times, but his thoughts and feelings always defeated him. The gym had charged his credit card each month as promised, and he had paid out $180 for something he wasn’t using. When he thought about it, he felt guilty, but his mind offered some excuses: I tried to exercise, but I just have too much going on in my life. I really would like to take better care of myself, but I don’t have time. I have a lot of responsibility, but things will change eventually and I will get around to it. He wished he had not signed that contract because now he was going to waste $540.
Each one of the thousands of people who sign up at a gym in January and never show up, go through some version of Mark’s story. They let their thoughts and feelings control their decisions. They could have been successful in disciplining themselves if they had understood the power of thoughts and known they had the authority to choose their thoughts rather than just going with whatever happened to come to mind.
Nobody is successful in any venture by just wishing they would be. Successful people make a plan and talk to themselves about that plan consistently.
Nobody is successful in any venture by just wishing they would be. Successful people make a plan and talk to themselves about that plan consistently. You can think things on purpose, and if you make what you think about what you want to do, your feelings may not like it, but they will go along. I slept great last night, and when I woke up at 5:00 a.m., I didn’t feel like getting up. It was so cozy under the fluffy cover, and I felt like staying right there. But I had a plan regarding working on this book. I had decided how many hours I would write today and in order to do that I had to get up. I thought, I am going to get up now, and I exercised willpower and I got up!
Do you even pay any attention to what you are thinking? Do you make an effort to choose your thoughts or do you just meditate on whatever falls into your head, even if it is in total disagreement with what you have said you want out of life? You don’t have to be trapped by negative thoughts. When your thoughts are going in a wrong direction, do you cast them down and out of your head as the Bible instructs (see 2 Cor. 10:5)? How much are you letting your thoughts and feelings rule you? If you don’t like your answers to these questions, the good news is that you can change. As I have said for years, we are in a war and the mind is the battlefield. We either win or lose our battles based on winning the war in our minds. Learn to think according to the Word of God, and your emotions will start lining up with your thoughts.
If you have had years of experiencing wrong thinking and letting your emotions lead you, making the change may not be easy, and it will definitely require a commitment of study, time, and effort. But the results will be worth it. Don’t say, “I am just an emotional person, and I can’t help the way I feel.” Take control. You can do it!
The hurtful and disappointing things people do are among the things that tend to stir up our emotions. Since we cannot control what others do or a lot of the circumstances of our lives, we need to look for ways to quiet our emotions concerning those things. The Bible teaches us to always believe the best of every person (see 1 Cor. 13:7). If we let our thoughts lead us, they usually tend toward negativity. Sadly, the flesh without the influence of the Holy Spirit is dark and negative. We learn in God’s Word that we have a mind of the flesh and a mind of the Spirit (see Rom. 8:5). If we let the mind of the flesh lead, we will be filled with death-like feelings and attitudes. But if we choose to let the mind of the Spirit lead, we will be filled with life and peace in our souls, and that includes peaceful and calm emotions. I urge you to choose what makes for peace because Jesus has called us to peace. He has left us His peace, but a life of emotional turmoil not only makes us miserable, it can also make us sick. Stress is the root cause of a large percentage of sickness and disease. Dis-ease causes disease!
I realized last year that most of my emotional turmoil comes about through people problems. I knew from experience that I could not control people and what they decided to do, so I began to pray about what I could do to not allow what they do to upset me. In answer to my prayers and through study of God’s Word, I started obeying 1 Corinthians 13:7 by choosing to believe the best of everyone.
An employee recently said some very hurtful and potentially damaging things about some of my family members and the ministry. The first reaction was shock, then disappointment, then confusion because we could not understand her motive. Finally, anger came. I have made a commitment to peace and I refuse to let my emotions control me, so I acted on what the Word of God says, and I decided to believe the best. I thought, She is hurting from a tragic situation in her own life and she probably is acting out of her own pain. I doubt that she even fully realized the potential impact of her words. I started praying for her, and when people asked me what I thought, I told them I was surprised and didn’t fully understand why she did it, but then I repeated my “thinking the best” idea. I noticed that each time I took that approach, it calmed me down emotionally and had the same effect on other people who were involved.
I’ve always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.
Sugar Ray Robinson
I’ve always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.
Sugar Ray Robinson
I truly believe the Word of God is filled with powerful secrets. They are not things that are hidden, but are definitely things that have been ignored. I have read it for years: “Love always believes the best of every person” (see 1 Cor. 13:7). I have followed that advice in obedience to God, but only recently have I realized that thinking the best is equivalent to taking a spiritual nerve pill. Because our thoughts are connected to our emotions when we think good thoughts, we will feel good emotionally.
Even if a person’s motive is terrible, I can still protect myself by believing the best. I am not responsible for another’s actions and motives, but I am responsible for my reaction to that person’s actions. I decided to believe that God was able to work good things out of what appeared to be a bad situation and that made me feel even better. Don’t ever be convinced that you have to be out of control just because you cannot control the people and things around you. Learn to live the interior life instead of the exterior life, and you will enjoy pleasant thoughts and calm emotions.
If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not let yourself be overcome by evil, but overcome (master) evil with good.
(Romans 12:20–21)
The burning coals that the scripture mentions are not payback for what the enemy has done, they are actually the fire of love you are showing that eventually melts the hardness of your enemy’s heart.
Eventually, the employee I mentioned above resigned, and we decided to go the extra mile and offer a good severance package so she would have time to heal from her own emotional tragedy before she needed to look for a job. We prayed with her and continue to pray for her and trust God to take what Satan wanted to use for harm and work it out for good (see Gen. 50:20).
This biblical secret of believing the best belongs to every child of God. All you need to do is follow God instead of feelings. When you do, the intensity of your feelings will weaken because you are not feeding them with negative thoughts. We have to make the decision while our feelings are still stirred up, but I promise you that they will calm down if you follow God’s plan.
God has not left us defenseless in these situations. We are in the world, but He encourages us not to be of it. That means if we will obey Him, then we will be hidden in Him, a place where a thousand can come against us, but we won’t need to fear.
A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. Only a spectator shall you be [yourself inaccessible in the secret place of the Most High] as you witness the reward of the wicked.
(Psalm 91:7–8)
If we need gasoline (fuel) for our automobile and pull into a station only to find a sign that reads SORRY, OUT OF GAS, we are disappointed, but we go look for another gas station. I think the devil needs to find an OUT OF GAS sign on our minds when he comes to cause trouble in our lives. He can always find someone who will entertain his poisonous thoughts, but you can let him know that it is not going to be you.
Think about things that make you happy. I could sit here right now and upset myself if I wanted to. All I’d need to do is take about fifteen or twenty minutes and think about my childhood. Then I could think of all the people in my life who have hurt and disappointed me. I could think of all the things that didn’t work out the way I had hoped they would, then I could imagine that more bad things are probably on the way. If I did that, I can promise you I would start to feel emotionally down, then undoubtedly angry. Why would we choose to make ourselves miserable? Ask yourself why you would do that and then make a decision to never do it again.
The next time your emotions are sinking or flaring up, stop and ask yourself what you have been thinking or even talking about. If you do this, you will probably locate the root of your problem.
Like most of us, you probably wish there was an easier way to live, but there isn’t. So you might as well decide to do things God’s way or be miserable. We usually try to take all the easy paths, but they all lead to destruction. The Bible describes those paths as “broad” because a lot of effort isn’t required to remain on them. We are encouraged by God to take the narrow path, the more difficult one, but also the one that leads to life: “Strive to enter by the narrow door [force yourselves through it], for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24).
We have to make a strong effort to push through the negativity in the world, but if we will do our part, God will always do His. Not everyone is willing to make the effort. They are addicted to ease and simply flow with their feelings. I am writing this book with the hope that my readers won’t be of the many who do not enter. Jesus died for us so we could have a wonderful, abundant life that is filled with peace, joy, power, success, and every good thing, but we must drink the cup that He drank. He was willing to go to the cross and pay for our sins even though physically, mentally, and emotionally it was very difficult. We too must be willing to do what is right, and our reward will surely come.
Study the Word of God regularly, and then when trouble comes, you will already have your spiritual tank full of fuel that will enable you to make right choices. Don’t be the kind of person who prays or has time for God only when you feel like it or have a disaster. Seek God because you know you cannot navigate safely in this world without Him. Truly, we can do nothing of any value without Him.
You and I can let our minds drift aimlessly day after day and we can be controlled by our emotions, or we can choose to gird up our minds, choose our thoughts carefully, and manage our emotions. God has set before us life and death, good and evil, and has given us the responsibility of making the choice (see Deut. 30:19).
If you choose what is right when it still feels wrong, you will be growing spiritually and making progress toward the life you really want to enjoy. Doing what is easy means stagnation or, even worse, a regression of any progress that has been made in the past. God is never motionless. He is always moving, and He invites us to follow Him. I like to say, “Get in, get out, or get run over.” Decide to be red hot on fire for God, or decide to be cold, but don’t live in the deception of merely being lukewarm. We can move with God, but if we move against Him by ignoring His principles, we will reap what we sow and we will not like the harvest we get.
Dr. Caroline Leaf has been in the field of learning, intelligence, and brain research for more than twenty-five years. As a born-again Christian working in universities, she realized there was a link between science and the brain. She states that this became very real to her after reading my book titled The Battlefield of the Mind. She realized that I was discovering as a Bible teacher what she was also discovering as a scientist. She teaches from a scientific viewpoint how people can put new information into their brains by simply choosing new thoughts. Dr. Leaf has proven scientifically, by watching the activity of the brain during research, that we can replace damaging old thoughts with new ones. She states that the nerve cells in our brains resemble little trees with many branches.
During an interview on my television show, Dr. Leaf stated the following:
I teach people to understand that a thought is a real thing. I think many people think that a thought is merely something out there that they can’t feel or touch. But, it’s actually a real thing. As you’re thinking, you’re actually building memories in your brain and the thoughts in your brain look like trees. The interesting thing is that if the thought is a good one, based on something positive, that it actually looks different in the brain than a negative thought does. The toxic thought, as I refer to them, will affect your entire body. They form a different type of chemical than a positive thought does. The toxic thought causes little thorns to grow on the branches in the nerve cells. These thorns are actually a little pocket of chemicals, and those chemicals are toxic. They squirt out their poison that can make you sick. The poison goes first to the heart and begins to choke it, then it goes to the immune system and breaks down your defenses and makes it easier for disease to germinate in your body.
I asked Dr. Leaf if we could do anything about the damage that has already been done, and she assured me that the answer is yes.
She said, “Within four days you can change your neural circuitry. Even as you’re listening to me now, you’re changing it. It takes four days to start taking the thorns off the trees. It takes twenty-one days to actually establish a memory without the thorns, and then you grow a new memory over the old one.”
We learn from God’s Word that we are to renew our minds and attitudes through study and meditating on God’s Word, and through that renewal we can enter the good life God has planned for us. Dr. Leaf states that repentance and forgiving anyone we are angry at are the best ways to start getting the thorns off our branches. She also stated that even after all the thorns are gone, we can rebuild them by beginning to think negatively again. The renewing of the mind is a constant, lifelong process, and to be honest, we must work on it every day.
Decision and confession: I always believe the best of every person, and I am very positive.