In today’s society, people are driven by their ever changing emotions. Every day, we are taken on a roller coaster ride of feelings. Emotions are undoubtedly from God, just like every other fiber of our being. Unfortunately, emotions, like all of creation, have been thwarted by sin and can lead us astray from our God who so intensely wants us to follow Him. I believe that the pattern of our natural emotions is a gauge to help us find where our hope truly lies. Simply put, emotions, like pleasure, are the measure of our treasure.

No matter where we are in life, our emotions are going to be present, but the larger challenge is to determine what we do in response to those emotions. As humans, we have been gifted with emotions from God. Just as it says in Genesis 1:27, "We have been created in the image of God." All people have attributes that our Creator has, but we cannot portray them in the full and complete way that He can. God has love toward us, is happy when we follow him and is angered by the sin that so easily entangles us. Emotions are a gift, not a burden. In consequence of humanity’s fall in the Garden of Eden, our emotions have been manipulated so that Satan can use them against us. We have ruined God’s gifts for us, and the only way to get God’s creation back to its original state is to come back to our creator through Jesus Christ.

I have learned that if we let emotions steer our lives, then we will not easily be able to become more like Jesus – or have a reasonably stable life. My father goes to a job that he truly despises every day to support my family. After every shift at the coal mine, he leaves his work housing many feelings of anger. If my father were to let his emotions choose his decisions, he would have quit a long time ago. That being said, my father gains great joy when he can support our family and give us the necessities we would lack if he did not work. The pleasure he gets from “bringing home the bacon,” is a direct measure of what he finds important. He treasures keeping his family financially stable, and that is why he disregards the negative emotions he gets while working.

Even when we feel doubt, sadness, hopelessness and laziness, we have to keep in mind what the purpose is. Our tools for life have to be true and reliable, like the bible and other spiritual guidance from God. When we experience the crossroads of this belief of spiritual reliance, rather than emotional decision making, it can lead us toward a successful Christian life. At these intersections of life, we can choose to go left and follow our emotions, where life and its quality are dependent on unreliable feelings that could be manipulated by anyone. However, if we go right, we can disregard the feelings and do what we know God is calling us to do. By choosing the right path, we can get off the roller coaster of emotion and feel the only pure joy found of Earth, which is joy from God. As it says in Psalms 16:11, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” David, the writer of this Psalm, was a man who had realized the chains of relying on emotion. He had found the only true happiness and hope in life. Just as David realized, we can also decide to not let our emotions decide where we are going in life - instead, they can simply help us determine where we are now and help us understand our need for a savior. The proper joy and hope is found in God who is constant throughout every trial and tribulation and who promises to sanctify us, as long as we follow Him and not our earthly passions and emotions.

We live in a day and age where everyone is riding off of an emotional high or low: romantic movies play on our feelings of loneliness, animal activist’s commercials play that same Sarah McLachlan song to get donations and sadly even the church has been known to draw in a crowd by pushing emotional campaigns and preaching the prosperity gospel. Emotions are important and effective, but at some point in our lives we have to dig deeper than the emotional layer of our true purpose. At the center of every emotion is truth, but the truth is Christ and many have not found their way back to that acknowledgment.

Once we dissect our emotions, we can give the control back to Christ. My beliefs about emotions changed drastically when I considered my father’s testimony and Jesus’ life. My relationships are healthier, because I do not rely on my emotions to decide how I live and/ or treat others. Feelings are a gift from God that sin has soiled. Jesus will continue to change my life, but if I let my emotions be my guide, and not my gauge, then I will never find my pleasure in the right treasure: Jesus.