Unpredictable Emotions (Stacey Smith)Escaping the Undertow

Leslie Basham: Stacey Smith says that unpredictable emotions can control your life, but there is a solution.

Stacey Smith: As you build that thinking through the Word of God, your emotions will rise and the mind of Christ will answer them. How many of you would love, when your emotions rise up, that the mind of Christ would immediately answer them?

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Thursday, December 15.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: The holidays are a source of joy in a lot of ways, but they can also bring busyness, difficult family dynamics, and financial stress. For a lot of us, the holiday season is full of unpredictable emotions. Today we’re going to hear a message from my dear friend, Stacey Smith.

Stacey founded a ministry called Prison to Purpose after God transformed her life while serving a twelve-year prison sentence. She delivered this message at a True Woman conference in Ft. Worth. I know you’ll be encouraged by this timely message, as she shares how to keep our emotions under God’s control. Let’s listen to Stacey Smith.

Stacey: I love to study out of Webster’s Dictionary, an 1828 edition. It’s an awesome, awesome dictionary—if you don’t have one, you need one. I was studying this week out of the 1912 dictionary, and one of the definitions of emotions was “an undertow.” I said, “Lord, give me an illustration of my emotions with an undertow.”

He reminded me that when I lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, when my family lived down there, my parents would pull up in that yellow station wagon on the beach. We’d get out and I’d follow my brother, running out to the beach, and we’d get in the ocean.

I’ll never forget the first time that I looked back up on the shore, and my parents were gone! I panicked. Well, they hadn’t gone anywhere. I had just moved by the undertow that slowly took me away. That’s what your emotions will do. When you respond wrongly, they slowly take you away from your point of reference, which is the Word of God.

So we say, “What are our emotions?” They’re anything that agitates or moves your mind. What moves you? When your husband does not come home for dinner and dinner is waiting and he hasn’t called—does that move you? That expectation is there. You expect that he should’ve called, and granted he should have, but what if he doesn’t? What are you going to do?

As you put God’s Word in, when your life situations rise up, then you have God’s Word, His pure Word, that will answer your situations, no matter if they’re from your emotions, from your thoughts, or from your decisions.

The Word of God is what changed my life. You cannot come out of a $500/day drug habit and a life of immorality and just go to some program that does not have something that cuts, that does not have something that discerns the intents of this ugly heart.

Let me tell you one thing. You don’t have to go to the McPherson unit in Newport, Arkansas and spend twelve years to have a criminal mind. If you do not add the Word of God to your life, you are criminally minded.

Your emotions, in definition, they continuously go from one point to the other. All of a sudden you feel irritable. You start getting irritable, you lash out, then you’re sorry that you’ve lashed out. So you’ve gone from irritability to angry outburst to, now you’re sorry you did it (“Ah, I shouldn’t have done that”), then you have self-pity. You start feeling sorry for yourself.

Then you start having fear of rejection because of how you responded, you shouldn’t have done it, you should have responded differently. Then the doubts run in, and don’t forget all the insecurities. Do you see how they go from one point to another? We’ve got to catch them from up here. I promise you all I’m getting to that.

Then they’re like a force. They’re a force that actually just drives you, just like a storm. How many of you, when they start rising up, you’re wanting to catch them, but you can’t. Some of us are more like that than others.

Let’s look at the equations: Emotions plus your will will overcome your mind. That’s your feelings, plus you make all your decisions from your will. This is when your feelings plus your decision making overcome your better thinking. Let me give you an example.

Somebody offends you. They hurt you, and your feelings get hurt. Now, your will begins to say, “I’m not going to forgive her,” so then you get vengeful in that. You think, “I know I’m not supposed to be vengeful, but I’m not forgiving.” And that overcomes your better thinking. How many of you has that happened to?

Your feelings get hurt, and you turn around and then you make a decision to retaliate, “Okay, let me do it like this . . ." How many of you do the silent treatment ? “I’m not angry. I just haven’t talked to you for three days.” “I’ll show you.”

I was a silent-treatment child, and my dad knew how to handle me. My dad’s will was stronger than mine, thank the Lord. It was bad enough my having a strong will and his being stronger than me, but he would dig at me.

“Sweetheart, are you going to come in and eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Aw, come on, Mama’s got some good stuff to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

I would do this silent treatment for like three days. I would go in and eat when he would go to bed. I retaliated against him. When it did not bother him, after two or three days, I just would kind of start talking to him. He knew what he was dealing with. It’s amazing how Scripture says, “Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of the concourse,” and wisdom is crying out you and wisdom is crying out me (Prov. 1:20-21).

Wisdom always cries out first, and understanding comes later. In other words, the wisdom of God can come through your parents, it can come through teachers, it can come through Sunday school teachers, it can come through coaches, it can come through all kinds of different vessels. Wisdom cries out and understanding . . .

Wisdom was crying out when my parents were saying, “You don’t need to be with those friends, you don’t need that boyfriend, you don’t need this . . . “ Wisdom was crying out, but let me tell you what, understanding came when I was sitting in that jail cell with a sixty-year sentence. Understanding came.

All of a sudden my parents got very smart in my eyes, but the only thing is, that was wisdom looking back. Wisdom desires for us to look forward. In other words, God wants you to answer your emotions in wisdom. No matter how you feel, He wants you to answer with truth.

No matter what’s going on in your life, He wants you to answer with factual things, what is true. When your emotions are going crazy, the first thing you need to say is, “What is true in this?” That is number one. You need to say, “What is true in this? What I’m feeling, is this true?”

If you will just answer that question, that will be a great beginning. So when you look at that equation, and it says your emotions plus your will overcomes your mind, that’s also in the same areas where I was telling you a woman will throw away the truth for her emotions.

What is the history of your choices, based on your emotions? Good or bad? They can be either way, and you probably have a little bit both ways. Some of the history is probably that you’ve made some good choices as a result of those emotions.

Probably you made the good choices when your emotions were on the “up.” But looking back on all your emotional moments, what was that history? If you had to write that history out today, what would you write? We’re looking for consistency. The more consistent you are in applying this, the more you’ll walk in stability.

The next one is actually your emotions plus your mind overcomes your will. This is when your feelings—here we go with your feelings again—plus what you think. Do you understand when your mind and your heart are warring? Your heart can know that something’s true at times, but your mind starts warring, and thinking through it and resisting that.

I can tell you, at the age of sixteen, I can remember that my parents told me, “You do not need to have that boyfriend.” I was sixteen, he was twenty-one. They were absolutely right. I was very dishonoring to my parents. I came from a very good home morally.

I knew growing up there were many things right and wrong, but we did not own a Bible, we did not go to church. My mother told me I was sprinkled Catholic, baptized Baptist, confirmed Episcopal, married Methodist.

I went to AA and in AA I had to find God, it was a higher power, they said. I said, “Okay, light bulb will work.” It wasn’t until I really heard the gospel, when I was in the prison, and that’s when Jesus Christ changed my life.

At the age of sixteen when I started dishonoring my parents like I did . . . you cannot think outside that judgment. “Honor thy father and mother that things may go well.” You may be sitting here, and you may not be a teenager, like I was, but have you gone back and made those relationships right?

Once we do not honor those parents, going back, God places a judgment on us. He says, “Things will not go well.” You and I cannot think outside of that judgment. I could not think outside of having a wrong relationship. I could not think out of walking the way I was. Why? I could not change the judgment of God. He said “Honor thy father and mother that things may go well” (see Deut 5:16).

When I did not honor them, guess what? Bam—there was the judgment. Thanks to God, in going back and asking that forgiveness of my parents, I can tell you, I began to think outside the box of judgment. Do you understand what I’m saying?

At the age of sixteen they said, “You don’t need that boyfriend.” I said, “I want that boyfriend.” Every time they said, “You don’t need him,” I wanted him that much more. And at the age of sixteen, I found myself pregnant.

I was pregnant and I remember, in my thinking, I wanted that baby. I wanted that baby. There was just something automatic within me, even at a young age, I could tell you I felt that. There was an emotion. I was so thankful, so happy to be pregnant, even though my mind started raising up and saying, “Daddy’s gonna kill me. Mama’s gonna kill me.” Then, “Your boyfriend’s not going to like you anymore because you’re going to get fat.”

So all of a sudden it was my feelings of wanting that baby, to my reasoning out, and what did it do? It overcame my will. It overcame me even from choosing right. I don’t believe I could choose right, because I was in the boundaries of God’s judgment, because I had dishonored back here.

God will forgive you of your sin; He will forgive me of my sin, but He does not remove the consequences. He forgave me when I crossed the State of Arkansas and got with those drugs and I got a sixty-year sentence. He forgave me immediately, but He has not changed/removed the consequence.

He’s working it for my good. I did twelve years in prison. He forgave me twelve years before. He forgave me, but I did twelve years. I have a $63,756.00 fine that I pay $50 a month toward. I’ll be paying that until Jesus comes back, and I have to get permission to leave my county. I’m on parole until 2014.

Do you understand? He hasn’t removed that consequence, but He’s working the consequence for my good. So at the age of sixteen, the feeling of wanting to be pregnant, then the reasoning it out, then it overcomes me to make, to keep me from making a right decision. It changed my whole course and direction of life on that day.

I can remember growing up—abortion was never wrong in our family—never. You never thought of it; it was never wrong until all the sudden it was me—it was their daughter. They didn’t make me do that.

But we counseled and they pretty much left it up to me.  But as any parent, you’re going to be connected with them the rest of your life, and we didn’t have the capability even in the Lord to think that way. But we knew it was wrong.

That one abortion led into boyfriend number two, that led into pregnancy number two, that led into abortion number two. And don’t let me forget number three and number four and number five. I reasoned out all of them.

I first of all fell in love, not even knowing what love was. When someone says, “I love you,” . . . we love to be told, “I love you.” I always was looking for love in all the wrong places, and I know I just wanted someone to love me. My parents did love me, my dad loved me, but I looked at his correction as rejection. I just wanted to be loved, so when I had this guy—what do those words mean to you?

Maybe you have a daughter, or maybe you work with some teenagers, or maybe just you, like me, you were older in your twenties and growing up and a guy said, “I love you.” What was the cost behind those words, “I love you?”

“I love you . . . if . . ." What’s, “I love you?” And, by the way, "Why do you fall in love with that kind of man, Stacey? And by the way, Stacey, while I’m asking you this, why do you fall for those kind of friends? Why don’t you have the ability . . .?" It was because my life was in the boundaries of a judgment.

I can tell you, God’s forgiveness. Let me tell you, God not only forgives, He remembers your iniquities no more, according to Hebrews 8:12. He not only forgives, but He removes it.  And what He does forgive, He always removes. So I can tell you from each abortion that I had, my emotional make-up just kept getting worse.

I had a silent cry within me. It was a silent anger. It was a silent and just everything was going on in the inside. So it just seemed like over and over and over, my decisions just kept getting worse and worse and worse. I got out there and out there.

You see, your emotions plus your mind overcomes your will. And don’t let me forget this. Maybe you’ve been involved with a married man before. Maybe it seemed so right, you were so compatible. It was so great when you were together, and you knew it was wrong, but then that part of you . . . It was like, how can something that feels so right be so wrong?

You start feeling that, in the same way that I reasoned with my abortions is the same way that you can reason feeling that something’s so right, that’s so wrong. What you feel you start thinking about, and then you find it overriding that determination, your will.

The third one is mind plus your will overcomes your emotions. This is my favorite. Go to 2 Corinthians 10:4-5. This is where we want to be, ladies. How many of you can already see that you’ve been thinking from those two equations in your life? Can any of you see that you have thought from those two places in your life?

Second Corinthians 10:4 and 5 says, “For our weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down the imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

Philippians 2:5 says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Here it is, ladies. “Let this mind . . .” In other words, Jesus Christ comes to live in your heart, His Holy Spirit comes to live with you, and guess what? He wants you to think from His holy mindset. This is God’s mindset. This is God’s mental disposition. This is God’s thinking.

As we think with Him, He will live it out. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” If you can gain the thinking, the conduct comes right along. Would you agree? If you can get the thinking right, the conduct comes right along.

You do have something available to you. Everybody shut your eyes. Do you see a black cat in your mind’s eye? That black cat has two front white paws. How many see it? Raise your hand if you see it.

Now, look at that brown dog, a brown poodle, kind of scrungy looking. How many of you see the brown poodle? All right, you can open your eyes. You have the ability to change your mind. It’s a trick isn’t it? I don’t have anything new. That was played on me, too.

I realized that we can change our minds. When we look at, “our weapons are not carnal, but mighty toward God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God . . ."

It's bringing every thought, ladies, every thought captive. If you know Jesus Christ lives in you, “Lord, this is not my thinking, because if You can stop the thinking, the emotions won’t get all out there.” Do you all understand?

So as you build that thinking through the Word of God, your emotions will rise, and the mind of Christ will answer them. How many of you would love, when your emotions rise up, that the mind of Christ immediately answers them?

On Sunday I didn’t even realize what was going on. The Lord brought up two Scriptures. I love just to be doing whatever and I love for God to bring Scripture up. God can’t bring something to your remembrance if it’s not there. He brought up this verse in Psalm 27 that says, “The Lord is my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

I thought, ”What’s that all about?” I didn’t feel like I was dealing with any fears or anything like that. I was going to work, to the prison, and singing, “The Lord is my light and my salvation . . ." I make songs up. However I’ve got to get the Word in me. 

I remember just kind of singing that, and do you know, two days later I realized that I was going to deal with some fear, and God had already brought the answer to me, two days before. He can’t bring it to your mind if it’s not there.

Nancy: Stacey Smith has been describing the power of God’s Word to counter unhealthy emotions. Perhaps during this hectic holiday season, you’ve found that your emotions have been a bit unpredictable. I certainly can identify with that.

Perhaps you need to take some time to identify those emotions and ask yourself, “Have I been giving my emotions too much control? Then, counter those emotions, and the wrong ways of thinking behind them, with the truth of God’s Word. What do you know from God’s Word that speaks to those emotions?

Then, resolve to stay in God’s Word, including during this busy holiday season. Make a commitment to open His Word, read it and get it into you every day. The Word of God is so powerful. That’s why we make biblical teaching a priority on Revive Our Hearts.

The consistent teaching of God’s Word is impacting listeners in a deep way as they’re willing to study the Bible with us. For example, one listener emailed us and said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for today’s program. I was falling into a pit of despair.”

This listener was dealing with some health issues and wondering why it seemed that ungodly people all around were doing so well. We addressed that question one day on Revive Our Hearts, and it proved to be just what this listener needed.

The email continued, “You’ve helped me re-focus and re-center my emotions. God’s timing is so good.” For more than ten years, now, our listeners have helped us speak that kind of encouragement in a timely way into people’s lives.

We’ve been able to stay on the air in your community and hundreds of others across this nation, thanks to the financial support of listeners like you. Typically, about 40% of our donations for the entire year arrive during the month of December. That means that we need to hear from you this month in order to keep the ministry going at its current levels.

Your gift at this time can also make it possible for Revive Our Hearts to take advantage of some new upcoming opportunities. God is giving us some wonderful opportunities to reach more people through new means . . . means such as foreign language broadcasting, social media, mobile apps, and small group discipling and training curriculum.

I believe that the impact and effectiveness of this ministry in the lives of women is about to expand significantly in the days ahead because of these opportunities. Remember that when you send a gift this month, it will be doubled. That’s because, as we’ve been sharing with you, some friends of this ministry are really passionate about what God is doing through Revive Our Hearts.

They are matching each gift to the ministry this month, up to a challenge amount of $600,000. If you believe in this message, if you believe in this ministry, if it’s been a blessing to you and you want to see it reach more hearts and homes in the years ahead, help us meet and even exceed this matching challenge amount.

Give us a call at 1-800-569-5959 and let us know that you’d like to make a donation to help with this year-end need. If you’d like to give online instead, it’s easy. Just visit us at ReviveOurHearts.com.

Leslie: Today’s speaker, Stacey Smith, will join the Revive Our Hearts listener blog today. That means you can ask Stacey a question, comment on today’s program, and read what she has to say to other listeners. To find the listener blog, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, go to today’s transcript and scroll to the end.

Has fear of rejection ever thrown you into an emotional tailspin? Tomorrow, Stacey Smith will walk you through cowering fear and other unpredictable emotions, with God’s Word. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.