What is Directing Me?

As American Christian women, we hear lots of messages today about the importance of our heart – messages that put great emphasis upon our feelings, our needs, our uniqueness, and our desires. As we are often led to believe that it’s okay for us to build everything around our emotions and our wants.  “Your heart is good,” is the message of one popular Christian book. “By living out your desires and dreams, you bring glory to your Creator.”

But is our heart really good?  Should our own feelings and dreams and desires and emotions be nurtured the way American Christianity prescribes?  I believe that our emotions and desires without a doubt and certainly can be instruments of God to help direct our lives, but ONLY when they are fully yielded to Him.  

Most of us never truly die to self – we never really walk through the painful process of laying every hope, dream and wish of our heart upon the altar before our King, or of letting our identity become swallowed up in Him. Because we never do that we also never see the beautiful plan He has for us in its fullest without the contamination of us attempting to interfere.  As a result, our emotions, personality, and desires quickly take over and control us, clamoring for us to build our life around them. We forsake a life of total abandonment and service to Christ for a comfortable life of pleasure because our feelings and desires are telling us it’s the only way to be happy.

Emotions must become subservient to the Spirit of God – to His will, His agenda, His purpose, and His direction.  The vast majority of us have become enslaved to our own feelings rather than bondservants of Jesus Christ.  We should never make decisions based upon what we feel like doing – but on what our Lord is asking of us.  Loving Him is first an act of the will, a choice to put Him first – no matter what our feelings tell us. Once we learn to love Him with our will, our emotions and feelings naturally follow suit, and it becomes our greatest delight to give our lives wholly to Him. The most beautiful and precious times of my life recently have come at His mercy and when I have slowly learned to relinquish the desire to hold the pen of my life story and gave that pen wholeheartedly to Him to create a more intricate and amazing story than I could ever dream of. As the Psalmist said, “I delight to do Thy will, O my God!” (Psalm 40:8)