Replacing unruly feelings

 

MASTERED BY FEELINGS - Feelings live in the front row of our lives like unruly children clamoring for attention. No one can succeed in mastering feelings who tries to take them head-on and resist or redirect them by willpower in the moment of choice. 

Those who continue to be mastered by their feelings—such as anger, fear, sexual attraction, desire for food, need for looking good, or the residues of woundedness—are typically persons who in their heart of hearts believe that their feelings must be satisfied. They have long chosen the strategy of resisting their feelings instead of changing or replacing them. This creates a ruined person who makes himself “god” in his world. 

By contrast, the person who happily lets God be God accepts that feelings do not have to be fulfilled. Achieving this new vision of oneself requires openness to radical change, careful instruction, and abundant supplies of divine grace. 

For most people this comes only after they hit bottom and discover the hopelessness of their path. They cannot envision who they would be without the fears, angers, lusts, power ploys, and woundedness they learned in the home, school, and playground. 

But with this new vision, they now see themselves as ones being transformed to characterize the inner being of Jesus Christ. Now they can stop being persons who spend hours fantasizing sensual indulgence or revenge or who try to dominate or injure others in attitude, word, or deed. Now they will not repay evil for evil—push for push, blow for blow, taunt for taunt, contempt for contempt. They will not be always on the hunt to satisfy their lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life (see 1 John 2:16). 

At first such persons have no idea who they will be if they “put off the old person” (involving the wrong feeling) and “put on the new person” (involving the good feeling). To long for the identity of a mere “apprentice of Jesus” is the starting point from which a new identity emerges.