E-motions Part 2: Understand Your Emotions by Pastor Kingsley Okonkwo: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Don't Live Based on What You Want to Avoid

A young lady preparing to enter university was asked what she wanted to study. Her answer: "Anything that is not stressful." That sounds funny, but she is not alone. Many people live their lives based more on what they don't want than on what they want — more on what they are running from than on what they are running to.

There is a great significance to this. If you live your life based on what you don't want, you will not be a very motivated person.

Consider two things: money (what most people want) and work (what most want to avoid). If you love money but don't love work, you will end up cutting corners. But if you fall in love with giving value, with developing products, with giving service — by default, you will still become wealthy. And the difference is this: no amount of money can give you fulfilment. Money is good, but in itself it cannot satisfy your soul. There is something about doing what you were created to do — when purpose and passion meet, there's no feeling like it on earth.

Don't live like that young lady — looking for anything as long as it's not stressful. Find what you love so much that when you're doing it, you no longer see the stress as stress. That is what emotion does for you. Passion makes stress invisible. When you go through obstacles and you are passionate about what you are doing, you don't see the challenges as difficult — you navigate them.

Emotions in Their Nature Are Unstable

Emotions, in their nature, are fickle. They are not stable. You cannot use how you feel to determine what is right or to measure the true state of affairs.

Most people have already mastered this in one area — going to work. Very few wake up every day feeling like going to work. But they go anyway. The feelings weren't good, but the action was right. Never use how you feel to measure the true state of things.

Marriages face a major crisis at the five-year mark — not because something has changed fundamentally, but because the emotional excitement has faded. Many couples mistake that fading for the end. When you understand that this is a predictable junction in any relationship, you don't say "I don't love you anymore" as if it is final — you stay. And the beauty is that once you stay and keep doing what you are supposed to do, eventually the feelings come and join you. Feelings have no mind of their own — they will always come back.

Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary feeling.

Act Your Way Into Feeling

The key principle of this message: it is easier to act your way into feeling than to feel your way into acting.

When you want to exercise, the first few times will be frustrating — your body is not used to it. When you try to say "I love you" to your spouse after a period of emotional distance, it will feel awkward. When you open your Bible for the first time or try to pray, it may feel like nothing is happening. Don't be moved by how you feel. Don't submit to how you feel the first few times.

The reason many people have never succeeded as much as they should is that the first few times they tried whatever they needed to try, they stopped — because they didn't feel like it — not knowing they should have pressed on.

The Bible says to forgive those who offend you — it doesn't say to feel like forgiving them. Forgiveness is an act, not first a feeling. If someone has genuinely offended you, you will not feel like forgiving them. But you forgive anyway. And once you forgive anyway, eventually the feeling of peace will come.

Prayer is the same. Going to church is the same. There are many times you will not feel like it — but if you act, by the time you are in worship, the feelings come and join you. Don't let your feelings dominate you. Start making it a practice to dominate your feelings.

The Danger of Living to Avoid Pressure

Once you identify something as stress, your subconscious will find ways to escape it. Once you identify something as pleasure, you will find ways to pursue it. People who say they have no time to read their Bible read all the comments on gossip blogs — they have time. They just identify the blog as pleasure and the Bible as pressure. Start identifying what matters as something beautiful, something you look forward to.

There are two ways to live: dragging through life complaining — or becoming very excited about it. The people who change this world sleep late and wake up early because they love what they do. They look forward to Monday. This life is too precious to live as a drag.

How to Get Emotional About What Matters

1. Get emotional about the things that matter. Make an emotional connection with your dreams. Buy clothes in your target size and try them on daily. Visualise the career you want to build. Dream about it. Obsess about it. You need that emotional connection as fuel for the journey.
2. Act your way into feeling. Take action whether you feel like it or not. The feelings will join you once you move. Forgive. Pray. Go to church. Say I love you. Start exercising. Start eating healthy. The first few times are always the hardest — press through them.
3. Surround yourself with people who can motivate you. Hebrews 10:25: "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but encouraging one another — and all the more as you see the day approaching." On the journey toward any dream, there will be many points of tiredness. If you are surrounded by the right people, they will speak strength into you. Solo believers never grow as much — there is no one to challenge them, pray with them, or push them when they want to stop. Accountability makes you perform better. Coaches make you go further than you would alone.