Suicide Awareness and Mental Health The Next Chapter - God's view

Our heart is the mission control center of our lives. Our emotions were created for a purpose.

Our heart is the mission control center of our lives. Our emotions were created for a purpose. God created man to bear his image - to be like Him to serve Him and be with Him. God gave us emotions as the expression of the desires and inclination of our hearts. These complex smoke detectors communicate the nature of the fires burning in our hearts. So often a person was created for a purpose.

Emotions are not sinful, even when they are intense, as in the case of someone struggling with suicidal thoughts. When emotions are the expression of desires that run contrary to the will and word of God. They are participants in our sin and in the sinful patterns of behavior that follow. What does our emotional behavior reveal about suicidal thoughts? A quick self-inventory with pen and paper of the triggers that provoke a given emotion - the words, actions, events, or people that cause suicidal thoughts - reveals much about the desires and priorities of our hearts.

God created man to bear his image - to be like Him to serve Him and be with Him. God gave us emotions as the expression of the desires and inclination of our hearts. These complex smoke detectors communicate the nature of the fires burning in our hearts. So often we forget the purpose of our emotions.

Emotions are not sinful, even when they are intense.

There are no empty promises

Each of us has things in our lives that we are reluctant to surrender control of even to Christ. These are parts of our lives that are ruled by intense emotions. I encourage you to share those areas of your lives. For me, my insecurities are something I am reluctant to relinquish control of. I have had a self-serving desire to prove my worth or my place in life through accomplishments. I felt at times inferior or inadequate intense emotions are tied to raw woods, deep hurt, and real pain, past or present. Sure, we all want the love of Christ. But are you willing to relinquish control over our pain or hurt? Are you willing to expose raw wounds?

The solution to suicidal thoughts is gospel obedience. Gospel obedience is a willing embrace of God's love by faith that sets apart a life entirely for the holiness of Christ, refusing to obey strong self-serving desires of our past life. Gospel obedience is the spirit-paved path to true emotional freedom and self-control that begins and ends in the love of Christ. This requires denying self and submission of our feeling to the Will and Word of God.

Who or what will role your life? When it comes to something we feel strongly about, we delay waiting for Jesus to work on our terms, and not his to delay is to refuse Jesus; to refuse Him is to disobey Him. Few are willing to admit that a refusal to obey God's Word, whatever the excuse is a willful choice of self over Christ and a flat-out rejection of His love. When we refuse or delay surrendering our emotions over the will and Word of God, we are essentially telling Jesus that we do not trust Him to handle the most painful and sensitive parts of our lives. We are saying that we can better manage our problems and our emotions than we can.

Herein lies one of the root causes of destructive emotions, like suicidal thoughts. Delay in obedience only fans the flames, allowing our suicidal thoughts to go unchecked, building behavioral patterns controlled by self-love and self-confidence rather than the Word of God. Redemptive change in our lives and our emotions cannot happen until self-love is replaced with the love of Christ. Until we embrace His gospel love through the obedience of faith until God's Word - not our feelings rule our lives.

Take this moment now, take a prayerful inventory, get a pen and paper (iPad, email, or Word/Goggle doc), and share comments on the areas you struggle with in obeying Christ. This is your first step toward Christ's victory over extreme emotions like suicidal thoughts.

1. Are you ready to obey His commands?

2. What have you read lately in God's Word that you have delayed in obeying?

3. What emotions are you struggling to relinquish control over to God?

God heals those things we reveal.

You Got G.A.M.E.