Lesson 2145b:
"I have the ablilty to change my own mood...even when I am really mad, or really depressed."
Most of my life, I have relied on others to help my mood. As a human, it's not only reasonable that this would happen but sometimes necessary and other times good...other times bad. However, even when someone is really frustrating me I CAN CHOOSE to cast it off and focus on important things...even when my raging emotions are screaming NO!!! We want to be mad, we want that person to understand the pressure they are exerting, we want to be heard, we want justice! (OK, that's a bit extreme) But, you get the point.
I am learning a way to combat these emotions, it's primitive...it feels like I'm throwing rocks and sticks at them, but it's effective. Not unlike an outnumbered army that has one superior weapon...determination. We are going to win or we are going to die trying! When the larger foe gets lulled into a sense that they can win at will (because the ALWAYS have) then they have given the person on the other side of the battlefield a deadly weapon.
For me, it just means that I have to continually tell myself that I WILL act and feel the way that I want to...not the way that my raging hormones and my mouth want to. It takes persistence and more than one "battle", but it's possible and with God's help I can do it.
When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. James 3:3-6
I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Phillippians 4:13
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