I had one of those “teaching moments” with my middle son.  Cody is a very bright kid who, through a series of unfortunate circumstances developed autism when he was younger.  Through dedication, hard work, and no short measure of God’s providence he has recovered to about 90%.  His only remaining quirk is his compulsiveness which is rooted in his emotional swings. 

He was ranting about it being his turn to do the dinner dishes and I used the opportunity to Carpe diem (seize the day).  I shared with him one of the greatest lessons in life – your feelings are not always your friend.

We, as part of modern American culture, have confused the role of emotion and passion in our lives.  Yes, passion is a great thing.  I would even dare to say it is an essential thing if we want to live a life that dares to venture past mere success and into significance. God designed our emotions to give us drive and color the worlds we live in.  But our emotions must be directed and filtered through our head first.  Just because I feel something doesn’t make it true.  Truth by its definition is not relative. 

I have seen many adults fall into the same trap Cody found himself in.  He was being led by his emotions.  When we let our emotions make decisions, we almost always will find ourselves down the wrong path.  If we look back with a perspective based in honesty I’d be surprised if we didn’t find almost all of our personally created catastrophes rooted in emotional reaction.   Look around you – What is the crux of being buried in debt?  What is really at the bottom of those bad relationships?  And I won’t even get started on the root of procrastination at work (or the gym for that matter).

Cody decided to check his feelings and made the right decisions to change his attitude and perspective.  He came back 5 minutes later with a smile and reported that he now felt happy, because he had done the right thing.