Negative Emotions: Window to Father's Love

No one enjoys negative emotions like:  anger, shame, bitterness, disappointment, discouragement, loss, guilt, depression, inadequacy, failure, anxiety, fear, or worry.  Yet in a turbulent wold these emotions are all to common of our human experience.  With the stock market taking wild swings, rumors of war in Korea, and mass shootings we are continually assaulted with events that could trigger negative emotions.

We need to reframe our negative emotions to see them the way Father does, each one of these emotions are a window for us to experience Father's love.  Yet if we do not see them the way He sees them, we will end feeling and believing we are in a worse place.  What if I told you that your brain is actually designed to lead you into experiencing God at new levels every time you experience a negative emotion.  We must be prepared to learn how to partner with God in this journey.  Every one of us when we experience an emotion, also then are led to a context for that emotion we will call this memory.  The problem for many of us is that we believe our experience of a negative emotion is because of what is happening now.  In reality we are feeling what we believe but this belief has it's context in memory.  Let's say I feel inadequate, which as I look deeper is really a feeling of "I am not good enough."  The context of this belief turns out to be a memory where an earthly father displays disappointing looks as I fail to make the shot in a game on the 4th grade basketball team (made up scenario).  The next component, truth, of going into the window of Father's Love is to ask Jesus His perspective in this context and regarding this belief.  As I look to Jesus I see that He says that He is always pleased with me and always proud of me.

The final dimension to this process is transformation, where this new revelation of truth and who Jesus is for me brings about renewing of my mind and then transformation.  Seeing that Father's love for me in this place is greater than the lie (I am never good enough) I once believed.  What if instead of fighting our negative emotions, seeking to medicate the pain associated with the negative emotions, or trying to stuff our feelings we could see a window into Father's love.  Every negative emotion in our life if we position our hearts to align with God's purpose could be an amazing opportunity to experience truth and thus freedom on new levels.

It has been said that 80% of Christians thinking is negative.  Could it be that we have not positioned our hearts and reframed these thoughts to experience God.  In a world that is increasingly negative in it's thinking, news, and perspective that we as believers need to rise up in our true identity to see from a new perspective.  I know for me after having a father commit suicide when I was 6, I learned early the bitter pain of life and thus adopted a very negative perspective.  I am learning to see as Father sees, so that I can experience His love in new dimensions.

Reframing the negative,
Bret