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PROGRAM D-8025
As we examine how to manage our emotions under pressure, most of us already know how we should act in certain situations. We should be cool in a crisis, positive when things go wrong, keep our voices calm when things get heated up, and don’t allow our temper to get out of control. We know these things—we just don’t always do what we know!
Jesus once said, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:17). The blessing comes when we do what we know we should do. The major difference between most people and extremely successful people is the gap between what they know and what they do. Most of us have about the same knowledge base. But people who are successful, both spiritually and in every other way, are those who are better at doing what they should be doing. It really is just that simple.
None of us who know Jesus as our Savior has an excuse for not doing what we should do. We all have the same power available to us—the power of God’s Holy Spirit living within us. We have this great advantage over those who don’t know Jesus because he gives us not only the desire to want to do the right thing, but the power through his Spirit to make it happen.
However, like all power sources, we have to be plugged in and the Spirit turned on. This is possible only through prayer, filling our minds with the truth of God’s Word, staying in close fellowship with the Lord, and building the right kind of accountability into our lives.
Emotions are gifts from God and they are given to us for good purposes. But when they are out of control, they can be very destructive. Pressurized situations can drive our emotions to the edge, but we have the power, through Christ, to keep them from going over those edges.
As you go into your work-world each day—whether it’s in an office, a hospital, a school, a bus, a factory, your own home, wherever—you have an opportunity to be the living word of God to those around you. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that they were “a letter from Christ. . .written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:3). Others will “read” your letter from Christ as they see you in pressurized situations, responding in Christ-like ways, with patience, love, kindness, and wisdom. That’s how we truly let our lights shine before people, so they can see our good works, and then glorify our Father in heaven.