Putting Emotions in Their Place [It's Complicated] — Pastor Lis Burns

Some of you have wondered why your life is so up and down. Who is leading your life? Is it God or is it your emotions? You wake up feeling happy, your day is happy. You wake up feeling sad, your day is sad. What if I told you there's another way? What if you can wake up in the truth of God's word so good days come, bad days come? But no matter what, you are standing on the solid rock of Jesus because you have decided to let his word be your emotional truth and not the feelings that you're feeling. [00:33:20] (29 seconds)  #TruthOverEmotions

The only thing that got me out of the cycle of why was looking at God one day and going, I don't understand you, but I will trust you. I will trust that the God who died for me has my back, has my best interest at heart. So emotions are not sin. Some of you in this room have been told to conquer your emotions, man up, woman up. [00:30:47] (23 seconds)  #TrustGodNotWhy

Maybe you need to stop asking God to do what you say and ask him to show you himself in a way you would never even think of, and then it's undeniable. And then, friend, write it down. I tell my kids this all the time, write it down when you meet with Jesus because you will have those days where you doubt. Then you go back to your journal and go, oh my gosh, remember when God met me so specifically? [00:23:04] (17 seconds)  #WriteDownGodMoments

I wanna free somebody up today. Make peace with your emotions. They're not your enemy, but they're not your leader either. Let's bow our heads because I want to pray for some in this room today. I told somebody else, I hope this message is a conversation starter. I hope you'll take this and discuss it in small groups and over coffee and be like, where have I been? Have I balanced my emotions well? Have I been letting them lead, or have I been letting God lead? [00:33:50] (29 seconds)  #MakePeaceWithEmotions

and so you start treating it, you take Tylenol or whatever, but you're not the sickness isn't that you have a fever. The fever is a representation of what else is going on in your body. Right? You have a cold, you have the flu, you have pneumonia, you have COVID, something's going on in your body. So, you treat the fever, but the fever is just a symptom of the deeper thing that's going on, and you can't just treat a fever and expect to get well. You have to treat the root cause. Right? Emotions are that way. [00:05:52] (23 seconds)  #TreatRootNotSymptom

So I sort of pushed my grief away and I was like, I'll just go on. I like to be happy. Like, for the most part, I am a truly joyful person. But I realized I had never grieved, and one day it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I started crying, and I was like, I'm really sad, but what else am I supposed to be right now? I just went through something hard. And Jesus wept, and I will weep now. [00:28:25] (26 seconds)  #ItsOkayToWeep

The Old Testament is filled with this word remember because the children of Israel would, like, watch the Red Sea be parted and then forget a day later and try to make a gold statue to worship. We laugh at them, but we do the same thing. Like, God meets us. He answers our prayers, and then the next day we're like, I don't know if he's real. Write it down, my friend. Encourage your heart. Remember. Tell your story. [00:23:21] (22 seconds)  #RememberGodsFaithfulness

You don't wanna be told that and neither do they. God does have a plan, but it's not time for that right now. Right now, we'll cry together. How about that? Right now, I'll bring you some spaghetti. Right now, I'll just come and clean your floors. How about that? If you ever want help with that process, please ask me because nobody wants to be told you're grieving too much and it's upsetting me. [00:29:39] (21 seconds)  #ShowUpDontAnalyze