Let me start today’s reading with a question; “What are you feeling right now?” Looking at today’s current and world events can certainly stir a variety of emotions. It may seem easy to recognize that we have some emotions! Yet it is not enough to go through each day just “feeling”, it is important that we also learn to identify what emotion we are experiencing and that we allow that insight to help guide us as we pray about the issues we are facing- both in our homes and in our nation. How can we be precise about something so invisible and yet so powerful? I have shared in the past of a very effective and useful tool for this journey called, “the feeling wheel”. You can find and even print it from this website: https://www.gottman.com/blog/printable-feeling-wheel. It is important that we try to be genuine and honest with ourselves as we seek to pinpoint our primary emotion from the list and then separate it from all the other emotions. When watching or listening to today’s news media, what is your response? Are you increasingly frightened or do you maybe feel threatened? Our emotions can take many individual, and yet specific paths. Fear, for example, is a base emotion that displays itself through bewilderment, confusion, helplessness, panic…etc. Maybe you are feeling more anger, than you are fear. Anger can express itself as hostility, irritation, sarcasm, frustration, hurt, or even criticism. Sadness can be seen when feeling the emotions of boredom, loneliness, depression, a sense of feeling guilty, or even of feeling inferior. As we pray about situations, events or even conflicts, each will impact us differently and will fuel different emotional responses. Sometimes we find ourselves (or our children) overlapping our emotions, not necessarily feeling just “one thing”! ie; fear with anger, or panic with guilt. Take some time today to pause and use this tool and pray for God to give you insights into how to pray about what you are dealing with right now. Get a feeling wheel, use it to search for and then pray about your own emotional state. Try to be as precise as you can. Thank God for His Spirit who helps us identify and gain insight into ourselves and those we love. This is the start! Tomorrow we will learn what to do next.
