The LORD's lovingkindnesses
indeed never cease, for His compasssions never fail. They are new every
morning; great is Thy faithfulness
In a general sense, your
emotions are a product of your thought life. If you are not thinking right, if
your mind is not being renewed, if you are not perceiving God and His Word
properly, it will be reflected in your emotional life.
One of the best scriptural
illustrations of the relationship between perceptions and emotions is found in
Lamentations 3. In verses 1-6, Jeremiah expresses despair as he wrongly
perceives that God is against him and that He is the cause of his physical
problems. In verses 7-11, 18, he vents his feelings of entrapment and fear. If
your hope was in God, and these words were a correct portrayal of God, you
would probably feel bummed out too.
What was Jeremiah's problem?
His perception of God was way off center. God wasn't the cause of his
affliction. God isn't a wild beast waiting to chew people up. But Jeremiah
wasn't thinking right, perceiving right, or interpreting his circumstances
right, so he wasn't feeling right or responding right either.
Suddenly, Jeremiah's
countenance changes: "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The
LORD's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness" (verses 21-23).
What a turnaround! Did God change? Did Jeremiah's circumstances change? No. His
perception of God changed and his emotions followed suit.
You are not shaped so much by
your environment as you are by your perception of your environment. Life's
events don't determine who you are; God determines who you are, and your
interpretation of life's events determines how well you will handle the
pressures of life. In reality we have very little control over our emotions,
but we do have control over our thoughts, and our thoughts determine our
feelings and our responses. That's why it is so important that you fill your
mind with the knowledge of God and His Word. You need to see life from God's
perspective and respond accordingly.
Prayer: Lord,
continually adjust my perception of my environment to match Your perspective
found in Your Word
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