The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life, Part 2

Two days ago in, Victory Over or Struggling With?, I asked: “Do we sometimes mistakenly convey the impression that applying biblical principles eliminates the battle, the struggle?” I also confessed that I struggle daily. I don’t always experience victory over, instead I experience struggle with, battling against, and victory in. 

Then yesterday in The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life, I introduced an acrostic, CHRIST, to use as a memory guide when praying the Lord’s Prayer. You can download a two-page outline for: Your Daily Prayer Guide.

Prepare to Pray: Meditation—“Our Father Which Art in Heaven”

C Commune with God: Adoration—“Hallowed Be Thy Name”

H Honor the King: Intercession—“Thy Kingdom Come”

R Radically Commit: Submission/Direction—“Thy Will Be Done”

I Invite God-Rescue: Supplication—“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”

S Savor the Savior’s Grace: Confession—“Forgive Us Our Sins”

T Triumph Over Temptation: Petition—“Lead Us Not Into Temptation”

Confidently Trust God: Glorification—“For Thine Is the Kingdom”

We walked through C, H, and R yesterday. Today we ponder I, S, and T.

I Invite God-Rescue: Supplication—“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”

Jesus teaches us to acknowledge our spiritual poverty (give). He teaches us to ask unselfishly (us, our). He tells us to pray wisely (this day, daily)—we are to pray about today’s needs and trust God for today’s supply. He instructs us to entreat practically (bread).

“Father, give us this day our daily bread. I am desperate for You, lost without You. Each day has enough trouble of its own, help me to focus on this day and cling to You today. I pray for the faith to believe that all I need is You and what You choose to provide. I ask for nothing more and nothing less than exactly what I need and can handle. I humbly ask for freedom from worry as I trust You to supply my every need. Your bread nourishes me.”

S Savor the Savior’s Grace: Confession—“Forgive Us Our Sins”

Christ teaches us to savor His grace. He wants us to be open to the Spirit’s revelation of our sin, to repent humbly of those sins, to receive and enjoy His great grace, to grant others forgiveness, and to seek reconciliation.

“Father, by Your Holy Spirit, reveal my secret sins to me. Show me the idols of my heart, the false lovers of my soul. I repent of my self-trust. I confess as sin my refusal to trust You. I have forsaken You, the Spring of Living Water and turned to broken cisterns that can hold no water because I lost my awe of You. Forgive me, Father. I bask in Your grace. I accept my acceptance in Christ. Life’s ultimate fear—death and separation—has been defeated. I will not fear what man can do to me. Praise Your name for wiping my slate free. Praise Your name for running to embrace me as the father of the prodigal did. In response to Your forgiveness, enlighten and empower me to forgive all those who have sinned against me. May I be, in Your name, an ambassador of reconciliation.”

T Triumph Over Temptation: Petition—“Lead Us Not Into Temptation”

Christ tutors us to triumph over temptation by seeking the Father’s protection. We are to pray for victory over, but humble rely upon God’s affectionate sovereignty if His will is victory in.

“Father, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. I seek Your protection against the temptation to worry, doubt, and fear. Keep me from situations where I am most prone to sin—my besetting sins. Yet, lead me to boldly go wherever Your mission leads. By Your strength, may I guard the garden, may I stand firm, putting on the whole armor of God. I pray that You would defeat the world, the flesh, and the devil in my life. I trust in Your awesome power as my only hope for triumph.”

Confidently Trust God: Glorification—“For Thine Is the Kingdom”

“I trust You, Father, because Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen. I am weak, but You are Almighty. I see through a glass darkly, but You created the end from the beginning—You are the Alpha and Omega. My eternal King, I commit to serving You bravely for Your glory. In my life, be glorified. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Join the Conversation

With whatever struggle you’re experiencing, what would it sound like for you to pray the Lord’s Prayer for your struggle today?

The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life

In yesterday’s post, Victory Over or Struggling With?, I asked: “Do we sometimes mistakenly convey the impression that applying biblical principles eliminates the battle, the struggle?” I also confessed that I struggle daily. I don’t always experience victory over, instead I experience struggle with, battling against, and victory in.

How do we struggle daily in a godly way? There are many aspects of daily growth in grace (sanctification, Christian living) that I could highlight. (For a full theology of Christian living, check out Soul Physicians.) Today and tomorrow, I’ll highlight one sanctification process that I suspect we often neglect: praying the Lord’s Prayer. How do we pray the Lord’s Prayer as part of our daily struggle with and battle against suffering and sin?

I use the acrostic CHRIST as a memory guide for praying the Lord’s prayer. (For a two-page outline, download Your Daily Prayer Guide.

Prepare to Pray: Meditation—“Our Father Which Art in Heaven”

C Commune with God: Adoration—“Hallowed Be Thy Name”

H Honor the King: Intercession—“Thy Kingdom Come”

R Radically Commit: Submission/Direction—“Thy Will Be Done”

I Invite God-Rescue: Supplication—“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”

S Savor the Savior’s Grace: Confession—“Forgive Us Our Sins”

T Triumph Over Temptation: Petition—“Lead Us Not Into Temptation”

Confidently Trust God: Glorification—“For Thine Is the Kingdom”

Let’s take a brief look at what this might look like in real life. I’ll use one of my own struggles—trusting God with faith and living for Christ with courage in the midst of worry, stress, and fear.

Prepare to Pray: Meditation—“Our Father Which Art in Heaven”

Jesus encourages us to start not with ourselves, but with our Father. This doesn’t mean we ignore who we are and what we’re struggle with. It means we bring ourselves to our Father and we focus on Who He is.

“Our Father which art in heaven, I thank and praise You for Your holy love. You are all-powerful and all-loving. You are the Father who never leaves me or forsakes me. Help me to bask in Your fatherly grace. Help me to fan into flame the gift You’ve given. You have not given the spirit of timidity, but the spirit of power, love, and wisdom. You are our Father, so I ask You to encourage and empower all Your children today.”

C Commune with God: Adoration—“Hallowed Be Thy Name”

Again, Jesus points us to God and His glory.

“Father, hallowed be Thy name. May Your name be glorified today as an on-looking world sees me trusting You, clinging to You. May my life of faith in the midst of fear bring praise to Your name. May I live in awe of You so others live in awe of You. May I fear God and not man. May my mission statement today be to exalt You by enjoying You. Spirit of God, hover over me and empower me so my supreme desire today is God the Spring of Living water. I want to know You whether or not I know relief.”

H Honor the King: Intercession—“Thy Kingdom Come”

In Christ’s use of kingdom language, He is telling us to pray for a deepening of God’s rule in our hearts: surrendering to God’s governance. He is telling us to pray for a widening of God’s rule in all our hearts: for salvation. He is telling us to pray for an expanding of God’s rule on planet Earth.

“Father, Thy kingdom come. Empower me today to live for Your kingdom and not my own. I surrender all. All my anxieties, all my care, I bring to Your mercy seat and leave them there. May I be anxious for nothing (even as I feel anxiety for most everything) as I come to You humbly with prayer and supplication, making my requests known unto You. I cast my care upon You because You care for me. I yield to Your rule in my life. Under Your Providence not a single sparrow falls without Your awareness. Help me to seek first Your kingdom today. In my little pocket of the world, empower me to extend Your gracious governance.”

R Radically Commit: Submission/Direction—“Thy Will Be Done”

Jesus keeps us focused on Father. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It is a prayer for right pleasure, calm assurance, clear discernment, radical obedience, and supernatural power, with brutal honesty.

“Father, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. My will is that I experience victory over. But if it is Your will that I maintain dependence on You in the midst of my struggle, then I will Your will. Father, encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, ‘take courage, fear not. Behold Your God.’ Father, I give You my confusion, my doubts, my fears, my perplexities. In the midst of them all, empower me with supernatural power to do Your will for Your glory. By Your Spirit grant me the calm assurance that Your glory and my good are inseparable. Cleans my heart so that all I do is motivated by the desire to bring You pleasure. Renew my mind so I have the discernment to know Your will and to pursue it with courage and radical obedience. This warrior is a child—Your adult child. May I walk in the awareness that You have not given me a spirit of fear, but the Spirit of sonship, so I can cry, ‘Abba, Father!’”

The Rest of the Story

There’s more to come, more to pray. I invite you back tomorrow into a glimpse of my story of God’s story. Lord willing.

Join the Conversation

With whatever struggle you’re experiencing, what would it sound like for you to pray the Lord’s Prayer for your stuggle today?

Victory Over or Struggling With? 

Last night I was reading Wesley Hill’s book Washed and Waiting. I was struck by many thoughts, including his quote from Philip Yancey:

“Much of what I read on depression, on doubt, on suicide, on suffering, on homosexuality, seems written by people who begin with a Christian conclusion and who have never been through the anguished steps familiar to a person struggling with depression, doubt, suicide, suffering, or homosexuality. No resolution could be so matter-of-fact to a person who has actually survived such a journey.”

Hill concludes, “I hope in what follows to convey something of what it’s actually like to have survived—or, rather, to be surviving—the anguished journey of struggling with homosexuality.”

How We Communicate Our Struggles   

In Evangelical circles, in pastoral care, and in the biblical counseling world, it seems to me that we spend much more time preaching, teaching, and counseling about “victory over,” and much less time journeying with and pondering “struggling with,” “fighting with,” or even “victory in.” Do we perhaps sometimes mistakenly convey the impression that applying biblical principles eliminates the battle, the struggle?

I wonder if Yancey is onto something with his diagnosis. It’s one thing to write about overcoming—academically, dispassionately, as an observer. But what about writing and counseling out of our own souls, our own ongoing struggles.

Many of the leaders of modern Evangelicalism and of modern biblical counseling, like myself, are middle-class, “type A,” academically-inclined, white males. We write, teach, preach, care, and counsel out of this perspective.

Look again at some of the literature we produce. How often are we writing about our current struggles or our ongoing struggles with issues such as depression, anxiety, heterosexual lusts, homosexual lusts, envy, jealousy, anger, and the like? How often do we preach about our current and ongoing struggles?

Stop for a moment before you say, “Oh, I just talked about how last year I battled ____________.” That’s part of our problem. We write and preach about the battle after we have won it. We talk about the valley once we are back on the mountaintop.

What impact might it have on our fellow-strugglers if we talked about the battle during the battle—while we are still in the valley? How might it connect truth to life if we were honest enough to admit that we have some lifelong, ongoing battles that we struggle with rather than that we always have “victory” over?

A Personal Confession

I struggle with worry, fear, and anxiety. Given my level of “productivity,” that confession might surprise a lot of people.

For others, that confession might seem to disqualify me from being a biblical counselor. “If you don’t have victory over these struggles, then what right do you have to counsel others?”

I view it differently. The fact that I experience daily struggles with, the fact that I daily battle against worry, fear, and anxiety, and that I seek to do so in dependence upon the Word of God, the people of God, and the Spirit of God, may be exactly what qualifies me. Each day I seek God’s daily bread to empower me to have victory in the daily battle as I fight, in God’s power, against the effects of the fall in my life.

Not Recanting, but Re-emphasizing

But this isn’t really about me. It’s about us. It’s about being biblically accurate about Christian living.

Anyone who has read any of my writings, and perhaps especially Soul Physicians, knows that I emphasize being “more than conquerors.” I stress our new identity in Christ and our new nature in Christ—our regeneration.

I believe in the power of Christ’s resurrection (Ephesians 1:18-23; Ephesians 3:20; Philippians 3:10). That’s why I call my ministry RPM: Resurrection Power Multipliers.

I’m not recanting of any of that. Our daily struggles against suffering and sin is the very reason we must cling to Christ’s resurrection power.

I am wanting to emphasize other truths that I have taught but perhaps have not highlighted quite as well. We need to ponder the truth about and the implications of living in a fallen world in fallen bodies—the groanings that exist until our glorification (see Paul in Romans 8:19-27).

I understand that sometimes God works in miraculous and mysterious ways to give what seems like total, instantaneous, ongoing victory. It occurs at times for the person struggling with drinking. It occurs at times for the person struggling with homosexuality (or with heterosexual lusts). It occurs at times for the person struggling with anxiety. Some experience ongoing victory over.

Many more experience daily, lifelong struggles against. For many, every day is another day to maintain sobriety in the power of Christ. For many, every day is another day to fight against homosexual lusts or heterosexual lusts. For many, like myself, every day is another day to struggle with anxiety in and through the power of the cross. (The Bible clearly portrays these truths by all the imperatives about continually battling against and putting off…)

Soul-to-Soul Ministry

Like the Apostle Paul, we need to give people God’s Word and our own souls (1 Thessalonians 2:8). Like the Apostle Paul, we can pray fervently for the removal of a thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) or of excruciating suffering (2 Corinthians 1:8-11). But at the end of the day, many times God still says, “Not yet. I never promised to remove you from all suffering and temptation. I want you to cling to Me continually as you struggle with and fight for victory in your situation.”

As we provide pastoral care and biblical counseling, we need to minister out of the anguish of our own ongoing struggle with suffering and against sin. We need to connect soul-to-struggling-soul. As we write and preach, we have to stop implying that the resolution to any battle is easy and matter-of-fact. As congregations, we need to invite one another to join together as we struggle in the anguished journeys we face as we live in a fallen world. We are all, as Paul Tripp reminds us, people in need of change helping people in need of change.

Join the Conversation

What is your testimony of daily struggling with suffering and against sin?

How would our pastoral care, counseling, preaching, and teaching change if we ministered out of our anguished souls?

The Anatomy of Anxiety

Part 39: Emotional Intelligence

Note: For previous posts in this blog series, visit: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26,  27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38.

Big Idea: Does worry, doubt, or fear get the best of you sometimes? Do you wonder where anxiety comes from and how to defeat it in your life and the lives of those you love? Then we need a biblical anatomy of anxiety. We need God’s prescription for victory over anxiety.

Note: Today’s blog post is excerpted from my book Soul Physicians. You can visit here to learn more about Soul Physicians and to read a free sample chapter.

Take an Emotional Intelligence (EI) Test to Test Your EQ—Emotional Quotient

If we’re going to defeat anxiety, then we need to manage our moods. To manage our moods, we need emotional intelligence. Take an Emotional Intelligence (EI) Test. What’s your EQ—Emotional Quotient? Evaluate yourself using 10 as “Emotionally Mature” and 1 as “Emotionally Immature.”

1. I’m aware of my feelings and moods as they occur.

2. I’m able to recognize and name my feelings and moods.

3. I’m able to understand the causes of my feelings and moods.

4. I maintain a sense of ongoing attention to my internal mood states.

5. I’m aware both of my mood and my thoughts about my mood.

6. I actively monitor my moods as the first step in gaining control of them.

7. I soothe my soul in God.

8. I have a sense of self-mastery—frustration tolerance and anger management.

9. I self-regulate my emotions—self-control.

10. I can harness my emotions in the service of a goal.

11. I can stifle my impulses (“passions of the flesh”) and delay gratification.

12. I’m a hopeful person.

13. I turn setbacks into comebacks.

14. I’m resilient and longsuffering. I demonstrate perseverance.

15. I practice optimistic self-efficacy—“I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.” “I can meet challenges as they arise.” “I’m competent in Christ.”

16. I’m learning contentment in whatever state I’m in (external situation or internal mood).

17. I’m attuned to others, not emotionally tone-deaf. I have the ability to sense another’s mood.

18. I have empathy built on self-awareness. I’m open to my own emotions and, therefore, skilled in reading the feelings of others.

19. I practice the creative ability of perceiving the subjective experiences of others.

20. I make another person’s pain my own.

21. I can take on the perspective of another person.

22. I forgive.

23. I’m emotionally nourishing toward others.

24. I leave others in a good mood.

25. I’m effective in interpersonal relationships.

26. I help others to soothe their souls in God.

27. I can initiate and coordinate the efforts of a group of people—helping them to move with synchrony and harmony.

28. I can negotiate solutions—mediation, preventing or resolving conflicts.

29. I can make personal connection—ease of entry into an encounter along with the ability to recognize and respond fittingly to people’s feelings/concerns.

30. I’m a good team player.

31. I’m skilled at social analysis—being able to detect and have insights into people’s feelings, motives, and concerns. Ease of intimacy and rapport.

Keeping It Real

How well did you do? What areas do you need to work on? How will you go about that?

The Rest of the Story

Our series on The Anatomy of Anxiety is nearing its end. In our next post, we’ll take a look at the role our physical body plays in anxiety and what we can do about it.

Join the Conversation

Why do we hear so few sermons, messages, and lessons on emotions?

The Anatomy of Anxiety

Part 38: Emotions 911

Note: For previous posts in this blog series, visit: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26,  27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37.

Big Idea: Does worry, doubt, or fear get the best of you sometimes? Do you wonder where anxiety comes from and how to defeat it in your life and the lives of those you love? Then we need a biblical anatomy of anxiety. We need God’s prescription for victory over anxiety.

Note: Today’s blog post is excerpted from my book Soul Physicians. You can visit here to learn more about Soul Physicians and to read a free sample chapter.

Mood Disorder: Emotions 911

Emotions and “moods” are not innately bad at all. Our struggle with negative emotions and “bad moods” is yet another result of our fall into sin. Emotionally, we’ve moved from “mood order” to “mood disorder.”

All disorder ultimately arises from a state of disconnection. Separated from the life of God, we demand that one another become like gods. When our fellow finite beings fail us, then we face personal dis-integration. We’re shamefully exposed as false trusters. The emotional result is disordered moods:

• My inability to accurately sense and experience my own inner and outer world and my failure to maintain a healthy self-awareness of my prevailing emotional mood state(s).

• My inability to accurately read my emotional thermostat so that I inaccurately gauge the relational temperature outside and my personal temperature inside.

• My inability to respond to my inner and outer world courageously, lovingly, and wisely.

In mood order, we perceive unpleasant or distressful moods as messages sent from the soul to the body (from the mind to the brain). The message is communicating: “Necessary changes requested. Please reply ASAP! Thank you.” The symptom (the distressed mood) is thus seen as a potential gift. It is like the warning light in our cars reminding us to “check under the hood.”

In mood disorder, we misperceive our distressed mood and respond in non-God ways. We attempt to manage our misperceived moods self-sufficiently.

Mood Reorder: Emotions 411

Satan wants our moods to overwhelm us, control us, direct us away from God. Or, at least he wants us to respond to them by entering survival mode. Overwhelming moods lead to survival mode.

Jesus came to give us life, and that abundantly. “Abundant” means beyond what is necessary, surplus, left over, greatly enlarged. It is used of the abundance left over after the feeding of the 5,000. Spoiling! Jesus came to spoil us. Resurrection power allows us to do more than survive. We can thrive (2 Corinthians 1:3-11; Philippians 3:7-15). We can move from anger to love, from despair to hope, and from fear to faith. Resurrection power offers fresh, creative energy, and a reawakening of courage—of mood. As Paul Tournier insightfully describes it:

The person matures, develops, becomes more creative, not because of the deprivation in itself, but through his own active response to misfortune, through the struggle to come to terms with it and morally to overcome it—even if in spite of everything there is not cure . . . Events give us pain or joy, but our growth is determined by our personal response to both, by our inner attitude (Tournier, Creative Suffering, pp. 28-29).

In reordered, redeemed moods, intense moods lead to a thriving mode.

We must recognize how marvelous moods can be when managed in Christ and recognize how pernicious they can be when mismanaged under Satan. Appreciate your moods as God-given sources of instant insight into your inner and outer world. Enjoy the usefulness of reordered moods in a disjointed world, which include:

• My God-given ability to become aware of my moods, whether pleasant or unpleasant, and to accept that I am experiencing that mood.

• My God-given ability to face and feel whatever mood I am experiencing, allowing it to grant me insight into my inner self and my external situation.

• My God-given ability to bring rationality to my emotionality by coming to understand the sources of my moods and my resources to manage my moods (responding to my inner and outer world wisely).

• My God-given ability to bring volitionality to my emotionality by choosing how I will manage my moods instead of allowing them to manage me (responding to my inner and outer world courageously).

• My God-given ability to bring relationality to my emotionality by allowing my moods to motivate me toward deeper connection or reconnection with God, others, and myself (responding to my inner and outer world lovingly).

Keeping It Real

On a scale of 1-to-10, how well do you manage your moods?

The Rest of the Story

In our next post, we’ll take an emotional intelligence test to measure our EQ: emotional quotient.

Join the Conversation

Do you agree or disagree that emotions and moods are gifts of God?

The Anatomy of Anxiety

Part 37: Emotions 411–Emotional Intelligence

Note: For previous posts in this blog series, visit: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26,  27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, and 36.

Big Idea: Does worry, doubt, or fear get the best of you sometimes? Do you wonder where anxiety comes from and how to defeat it in your life and the lives of those you love? Then we need a biblical anatomy of anxiety. We need God’s prescription for victory over anxiety.

Note: Today’s blog post is excerpted from my book Soul Physicians. You can visit here to learn more about Soul Physicians and to read a free sample chapter.

How We Relate, Think, Act, and Feel

Obviously, our emotions are useful, beneficial, and very good. Just as obvious, our emotions often are hurtful, harmful, very bad. We are to be angry, but not sinfully so. Anger can be good, it can be evil. So it is with all emotions and moods. Designed for mood order, we experience mood disorders, and can experience reordered moods.

We tend to develop rather patterned approaches to life. Relationally, we cling to our Creator or to created realities—pure or impure affections, lovers of the soul or idols of the heart. We worship God our Spring of Living Water or we dig broken cisterns that can hold no water. We enjoy intimacy with Christ or we weary ourselves pursuing false lovers.

Rationally, we develop mindsets that persist over time. Either we direct our lives according to the mindset of the Spirit or we pilot our lives off course according to the mindset of the flesh. Either we guide our lives along the narrow path of wisdom or along the broad road of foolishness.

Volitionally, we develop purposeful pathways of intentional interacting. We trod a path toward what we perceive will satisfy the hunger of our heart. We habituate ourselves either toward willing God’s will or willing our own will. “Your will be done,” or “My will be done.”

Emotions are no exception. We not only experience instantaneous emotional responses, we also encounter ongoing mood states.

Emotions and Moods

A mood is a background feeling or emotional state that persists over time. It is less intense and longer lasting than emotions. My mood is my prevailing tone or coloring, my state of mind, frame of mind. In a sense, it is my emotional outlook that occurs both at a particular time and settles deep inside me over time.

Moods are the intersection of our emotional/feeling responses and our rational attitude/perceptions. My mood reacts both to the external events of my life and to the internal longings, images, ideas, goals, and actions of my soul.

Created by God, moods, like emotions, were a very good thing. God intricately fashioned us to experience a variety of positive emotional states, the most optimal moods. Our moods and emotions contain vital signals of readiness not simply for action, but for interaction, and rest from interaction. They signal when we need to interact and when we need to come apart (before we fall apart). Jesus identified within himself moods that led him to seek solitude (Mark 1:45; Luke 5:16) and that led him to engage in intimate interaction (Luke 5:15; Mark 3:1-6).

Our moods guide us to mobilize our resources for wise relating. They work with our self-awareness so that we can become attentive to our emotional states as our inner person interacts with our outer world. Moods motivate, or better, moods jolt us into awareness, promote pondering, and motivate us toward appropriate interaction.

Taken together, we can define mood order as:

• My God-given ability to feel my own feelings, to sense my own life experiences, and to become self-aware of my prevailing emotional mood state(s).

• My God-given thermostat that quickly gauges the relational temperature outside and my personal temperature inside.

• My God-given capacity to courageously, lovingly, and wisely respond to my inner and outer world. I perceive what I feel and I choose how I respond.

In the Beginning…Moods

What was the mood process like for Adam and Eve? All order ultimately arises from connection. So when Adam felt happiness and joy in the presence of Eve, his entire being became focused on connecting, attaching. “I like being with her. I want to be with her. When we are together, I am outrageously happy.”

Sinless Adam and Eve also could have experienced legitimate sadness—a sadness due to absence that impelled them to reconnect. Adam is working in one part of the Garden. Eve in another. Happy in her work, but aware of a growing sense of sadness, a developing mood of aloneness, Eve stops. She ponders. She recognizes the source—she misses her hubby. She runs to him, throws her arms around him, kisses him impetuously. “Just wanted you to know how much I missed you!” Separation, whether physical or psychological, is a basic cause of human sadness. Sadness provides a driving force to restore attachment, in the same way that hunger impels us to eat.

Keeping It Real

What “mood” are you in right now? How could you apply today’s biblical principles of “mood order” to better understand and manage your mood?

The Rest of the Story

It would be nice if we could stop at “mood order.” However, the Bible tells us and we all experience “mood disorder.” Why? What can we do about our disordered moods and emotions? And how can we “reorder our moods”? How can we manage our moods? Our next post begins addresses these vital personal issues.

Join the Conversation

Why did God create us with emotions? 

Soul Physicians