Negative Emotions: 7 Keys to Overcome Overwhelm

Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. ~ Phil. 4:6-7

How easy it is to succumb to emotion, to surrender to the feelings that overwhelm and threaten us. How hard it is to give up our selfishness and move forward into peace and victory. Yet that’s what it is – selfishness. “I feel this way, and everyone else is wrong. I hurt so it doesn’t matter how you feel.”

God has told us to cast our care on Him. We forget, I think, that emotions are ‘cares’ also. He wants us to feel, but He don’t want us governed by those feelings. They are so subjective, so changeable – one minute up, the next minute down. Do our circumstances really change so rapidly, so drastically? Like a flash fire, I can go instantly from OK to outrage, peace to anger, helpful to resentful.

Why is it that words and personalities can move us so easily away from Spirit, Divine Love? Why do people have more effect in and on my life than God? Why after all these years is it still so easy for people to push my HOT buttons? Have I learned nothing?

I so understand the Israelites who spent 40 years wandering the desert because of their constant grumbling and complaining. Well, I don’t get the golden calf, but the rest of it: never settled, always wondering when the next move will be. Manna for endless days, only quail meat for weeks. Dependent on water from a boulder. Have You heard of variety, God? Maybe a fruit salad or corn on the cob? Sponge cake or figs and cheese?

We want comfort – all the time. Nothing to challenge us, nothing to upset our pre-determined schedule and plan. Yet I think God delights in upsetting our ‘apple cart’, challenging us to look beyond the immediate upset to find His promises of care, comfort and peace.

God's infinite creation continues to expand, based on His words in Genesis. Light hasn’t stopped expanding, the fish and birds and plants haven’t stopped producing. And He doesn’t want us to stop growing, both in spirit and soul.

• The Bible clearly tell us that God want us to prosper and be in health, even as our souls prosper (3 John 1:2).
• His Word promises us that if we delight in Him, He will give us the desires of our heart. (Ps. 37:4)
• And He remind us to cast all our care on Him, for He cares for us.(I Peter 5:7)

The problem is our perception. What God considers growth and development, we call inconvenience, aggravation, and devastation. While He is looking at the blessing waiting for us on the other side of the challenge, we can’t see past the pain and anger. Our frustration is greater than our desire for victory. Our feelings of overwhelm are stronger than our urge to overcome. We forget His Divine plan in the midst of our pain.

So, what’s the solution?

God wants us to persevere, to get a breakthrough instead of a roadblock. He wants us to expect victory not defeat. Here are seven keys to help you overcome the overwhelm of your emotions.

1. Have faith in God (Mark 11:22). If we don’t fully understand His love for us, His desire and plan for us, we will not trust Him. Yet Jeremiah assured us that God said, I know the thoughts that I think toward you … thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end (v. 29:11). God is Love. He is also a God of justice and mercy. We need not seek our own recompense or vengeance. For the LORD is the God of recompense, He will surely repay (Jer. 51:56). Trust Him to take care of you wholly and completely.

2. Cast down imaginations (2 Cor. 10:5). Our reasoning and intellect, our mental and physical challenges can seem bigger and more powerful that our God. Even though worry cannot change our situation, we persist in running the problem round and round in our thinking. The problem is that we never actually focus on the solution. Yet the Bible admonishes us to …

3. Cast all your care on Him (I Peter 5:7). We must be willing to let go of the problem and release it to God. If we give a possession to a friend, do we go get it and take it back? Well, when we give God our cares, He doesn’t expect us to come get them! He wants us to be at peace, walk in love and trust Him to maneuver the details into a blessing instead of a burden. Isaiah told us that it shall come to pass ... that [our] burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing (v. 10:27).

4. Fear not, believe only (Luke 8:50). Jesus said, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27). If we are not peaceful, we are not in faith. That doesn’t mean that our faith will not be challenged, but if we look deep inside, we will notice that our spirit is peaceful, even if our emotions are not. God wants us to have dominion over our thoughts and emotions and stay connected to Him.

5. Meditate the Word day and night (Joshua 1:8). Stay focused on the promises of God until they build a stronghold in your spirit, a battering ram that will break through the barriers in your life. Research His Word, roll the verses around in your mind, write them down and say them aloud to yourself. Use your memory (by memorizing His Word) as a weapon against fear and defeat.

6. Be strong and of good courage (Joshua 1:9). It takes courage to stand in faith, trusting God alone for your outcome. Joshua had to step into Moses’ shoes, leading the Israelites into their Promised Land. He did not waver. He clung to the promise God had made more than 40 years prior – and he found victory and blessing in abundance.

7. Speak the Word only. Now that you have built up your spirit and cast down worry and torment, you are ready to release your faith. Mark 11:22-24 tells us how. For verily, I say unto you, whosoever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea: and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever he desire, when ye pray, believe that he receive the, and ye shall have them (emphasis mine).

There you have it. Seven simple (I did not say easy!) keys to staying in faith and receiving the promises and peace of God. Might I suggest that you write them down and keep them close. That way, when you are faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem or an overpowering emotional crisis, you can refocus your thinking and rest in the peace and promises of God.

Remember, only you can decide what really matters most - giving in to emotional melt-down or striving for victory and inner peace.