Rick Warren - How You Handle Emotions Will Change Your Life

The emotions that you have felt the last two years,

the frustration. Don't suppress it. Don't repress it, confess it

and express it to God. When you swallow your emotions,

your stomach keeps score. If I don't talk out my

emotions to God, I will take them out on my body. Wow.

The healthiest thing you can do as a believer is

to tell God exactly how you feel and he can

handle it. I will confess I have an addiction. This

will shock everybody. My addiction is I'm addicted to change lives.

That amazing, beautiful, and all it takes is one change

life for me to go. It's worth it because I've

seen marriages put back together. I've seen kids get off drugs.

I have a guy who was with the life prison

for life for a double murder who's now I'll pastor

on my staff. The grace of God can reach anyone, anywhere,

at any time. Nothing else can do that, Nothing else

can answer the world's problems. When we look around, Corey

ten booms that it like this. If you look at

the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll

be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you'll be

at rest. So I've tried to keep my eyes on

the Lord all these years. And even though things are

going not real good in the world right now, we're

not in a happy time in the world right now.

We just just admit that we're not in a happy time.

But I will tell you this, and I'll tell this

to everybody there. God will have the last word, Yes

he will, and it will be good. God will have

the last word and it will be good. And right now,

the two years of pandemic have been creating a spiritual

hunger in people that they don't even know what they're

looking for. They're just dissatisfied. They don't know what they're

looking for is God. They really don't. This is why

it's time for the church to step up, for Christians

to not cower and to hold back, but to be

loving and to be bold and to be caring, and

to treat everybody with dignity, no matter who they are,

what they've done, or how long they've done it or whatever.

Just to be gracious. And if we will be gracious

and kind, there will be a great harvest of people

who go, I want what you've got, Okay, I want

what you've got, and I want to learn how to

manage with a peaceful mind when everything's chaos all around me.

That's our testimony, you know, don't.

Be weary and well doing I think, I think the

compassion fatigue, all the stress and all the strain on

lives and marriages and families and government and just all

of it. Don't be weary in well doing because in

due season, and we've been talking about waiting this time

of wait. The Bible says, if you wait on the Lord,

that's the scripture that just kept coming, Wait on the Lord.

What happens when we wait on the Lord? He renews

our strength.

Amen.

The Bible says, they will mount up like wings of eagles.

It is time for the church in this period of weight, dammit.

I mean pastor the questions at the beginning of all

this thing, all through twenty twenty, you know, and twenty

twenty one, But through twenty twenty it was just like

what in the heck is going on? Right, and nobody

had an answer for it, and it was just this

time of just and then we thought twenty one was

going to be better, yeah, right, right, But God promises

us that if we wait on the Lord, He's going

to renew our strength.

When what Laurie's talking about here is so important. When

you're in God's waiting room, there's no alternative but to wait,

to wait on the Lord. What do you do in

God's waiting room that gives you resilience? Well, one of

them is first, be honest to God about how you feel.

When you pray as a believer and you're feeling down,

you're feeling discouraged, tell it to God. God doesn't want

to hear what we think we ought to feel. He

wants to hear how we feel. So if you're discouraged,

you say, God, I'm discouraged. If you're depressed, God, I'm depressed,

I'm worried, I'm fearful. Tell whatever you're feeling. What you

need to understand is this. The only the reason you

have feelings is because you're made in God's image. God

is an emotional God. If God were not an emotional God,

you wouldn't have any emotions. The only reason you're able

to love is because God is a loving God, and

we're made in God's image. But God, the Bible says,

God gets angry. The Bible says God gets jealous. The

Bible says God grieves over his people. That God, you know,

his patience has tried, and you can see all these

emotions in God. The Bible says, be angry and sin not,

which means there is the right way to be angry

and the wrong way. Any emotion can be misused. But

emotions are simply emotions. They're feelings and actually in your

brain it's a chemical reaction, which means it can't last.

So no matter what you're feeling, the highest high on

your wedding day are the lowest low when you've lost

a loved one. That emotion will not stay. So never

make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. Some

of you are feeling like giving up your life right now. Don't,

don't do it. Don't don't, don't, just don't do it.

We need you here. You were loved, you're wanted, you're needed.

The Bible says, cry out your heart to God. That's

not telling God the pious platitudes that I think he

wants to hear. It means saying God, I'm in the

pit right now. And if you need examples, go to psalms.

We always think psalms are about praise and Thanksgiving, But

fifty of the one hundred and fifty psalms are complaints.

There's psalms of lament where David says, God, I think

you lied to me. God, I don't like you right now. God,

I'm upset. I'm mad at you. And you know what,

like a parent handling a toddler who's having a fit,

God can handle yours. And David ends up going in.

But you know, God, I don't really have anywhere else

to go, so you're stuck with me and I'm ticked off.

But he pours out his heart the emotions that you

have felt the last two years, the frustration. Don't suppress it.

Don't repress it, confess it and express it to God.

When you swallow your emotions, your stomach keeps score. If

I don't talk out my emotions to God, I will

take them out on my body. Wow. The healthiest thing

you can do as a believer is to tell God

exactly how you feel, and he can handle it because

He will never stop loving you. So in your in

your in your quiet time, and in your waiting room,

just be honest to God. And to get it off

your chest you weren't meant to hold it. When you

hold in your emotions, it's like taking a can of

coke and shaking it up and putting it in the freezer.

It's going to explode some sideways at some point. You

don't want that, So do what God says. Pour out

your heart to God, tell him exactly how you feel,

and you will find nothing but love back from Him.

At TBN, our mission is to use every available means

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