How am I Supposed to Feel? (Part 1)

Have you ever asked yourself, "How am I supposed to feel?"  What was your answer? 

I know that I want to know how to feel in every situation.  I want the freedom to feel without regret.  I want to say and do what I feel, but at the same time be in control of my feelings.  I don't want to feel like I lost some emotional battle when someone tells me to "calm down" in an emotionally calm and condescending way.  I hate when that happens because I feel embarrassed to feel what I'm feeling in front of someone who is so "in control."  So how do I do it?  How do we do it?  How are we supposed to feel?

I want to be as free to feel as God is, and for my feelings to be as perfect as His.  Imagine that.  I can just "be angry but not sin" as the apostle Paul says...just like God.  Now God can pour out his wrath and let his anger out.  But He is also patient, slow to anger; He is perfectly just in His expression of anger.  How can I be like that?  Genuinely like that? 

One thing that helps me is realizing that God basically does the same thing we do when we get angry.  It's not as easy for Him to be sinlessly angry as I thought, which used to bother me. I thought it was unfair for God to want me to do something that was hard for me but easy for Him.  But there is a scripture that says, "God does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men."  So if God doesn't willingly afflict or grieve people, then that means He does it unwillingly.  In other words, God is doing something that He doesn't want to do.  The prophet Ezekiel also says, "God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked or of anyone."  But God is the one in control of life and death.  So when the wicked or anyone else dies, God is responsible as the Creator and Sustainer of life; yet He is doing something, or allowing something, that doesn't feel good to Him.  Just like I have to do sometimes, or just like you do. 

So our will seems to be the answer.  Not forcing ourselves any more than God forces Himself to do anything.  But being in control of our choices...not in the bad sense of control, but in the sense of being genuinely free to choose what we say and do.  We take a breath, or pause, or whatever we have to do to get a handle on our wills, our thoughts, and our feelings.  We  don't do this to suppress our feelings, but instead to fully express them in words and actions that we choose for the situation.

Emotions fuel action, and actions assume a goal, a goal we should understand with our minds.

(Click HERE for part 2.)