Breaking Free from Bondage to Your Emotions

Last week, 30 Days of Surrender author Savannah Morello joined us to talk about overcoming overwhelming emotions. Click here to read that post. We are finishing up this wonderful interview with her today about breaking free from bondage to our emotions. 

What daily habits would you recommend for avoiding a lifestyle of being controlled by emotions?

          Knowing truth is knowing God’s Word; it is the ultimate measure of truth. I would encourage you to spend time in the Bible every day. Good, quality time. I know how hard it is to read over today’s verses and leave it at that, but what good is a mirror if you forget what you look like? Dig deep into the passage you have chosen. What did the author mean? Could there possibly be a deeper truth than the one that pops off the page? How does this apply to your life? What will you do today to live out this verse? I especially love the application questions at the end of every devotional in 30 Days of Surrender because they help us do just this.

          Still, I guarantee that you will not be reading the perfect verse every time you face temptation. Memorize verses so that they are always on hand! Every Sunday school student knows Psalms 119:11. “I have hidden Your word in my heart,” why? “That I may not sin against You.”

          Another huge part of fighting any temptation, but especially emotion, is prayer. Lately, I have been realizing again and again how powerful 5 minutes of speaking your heart to God can be. Ladies, it is so refreshing! He never fails to point me to truth and show me how crazy it is to doubt an all-powerful, sovereign God. This is an especially powerful tool when you don’t have a memorized verse ready at hand.

          Now I know that “read your Bible and pray” seems to be the fallback answer for every struggle with every sin. But there is a reason for that! Don’t just discard it as cliché. The Bible has power no other book does. And a direct link to the Maker of the universe – what’s more powerful than that?

If you could break overcoming a life strongly driven by emotions into three steps, what would they be?

1. Identify places where you are being led by emotions.  

          You can’t fight a theory. Look for specific examples of things in your own life where you are following feelings over truth.

2. Decide to fight them.  

          I know this seems like a given, but it is more important than you think. In my own life, chores tend to make me grumpy. When I finally catch on to my bad attitude, I am very tempted to spout off a prayer along these lines: “Father, I know I’m being grumpy. Please help me stop. But I really don’t like vacuuming, and I just did it last week. And my back hurts. And my audio book won’t download. Everything is going so wrong, and….” Somehow, I don’t think that train of thought would help me. I need to decide to get rid of my sin, not wallow in it.

3. Keep going back to the Lord. 

          You cannot fight this fight on your own. As the song goes, “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” As many times as the temptation comes, pray.

In Surrender Emotions, you brought up how we can use emotions to glorify God. How does that work in contrast to being controlled and overwhelmed by our feelings?

          Our ebook 30 Days of Surrender wasn’t named that for nothing. Glorifying God with our emotions essentially lies in that one word: Surrender. That means laying everything out on the table and letting God choose what to keep or toss.

Just like every other part of human existence, the Fall warped the emotions God gave us. Happiness, sorrow, anger: God created these emotions with a purpose, but we have used them for sin. As my mom says, “No matter what a mixer may want, it will never be satisfied trying to be an oven.” When we use God’s gifts in ways they were not intended to be used, it grinds us down and wears us out. Let God show us when to rejoice, when to weep, when to grind our teeth, and He will be glorified. He has given us guidelines in scripture already: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12: 15). Delight in the joy of others and praise the Lord for all His great works. Lend comfort to each other with tears of sympathy and fellowship. God even uses anger. No one can read John 2 and say Jesus never got mad.

          Yes, surrender goes against our nature. It wouldn’t be called surrender if we were doing what we naturally wanted to do. And yes, surrender is hard. But sin lands us in a smoldering wreck, yet surrender leads us to freedom in Christ. Emotional freedom is found when we reach the end of ourselves and lay down our life at the foot of the cross. 

If you liked this interview and if you appreciated Savannah's thoughts, you will love our new ebook, 30 Days of Surrender, which you can purchase here.

If you could give one piece of advice to a girl who was overwhelmed by her emotions, what would you say? Share in the comments!