Are You Driven by Emotion Or Devotion?

My daughter’s boyfriend sent her a video of when he got to work early one morning. It was raining REALLY hard and there was a small tree whose leaves and branches were blowing so crazily in the intense wind. Sometimes in life, we find ourselves in the middle of a crazy storm and we feel like we’re being blown this way and that. Our emotions are like those leaves and branches, they may sway from one extreme, like anger, to the other, like helplessness, or from resentment to fear. That tree may have looked like it was in danger of snapping or falling down, but the strength of the tree isn’t in its outer leaves and branches, it is in its trunk and its roots.

Your strength is not in your outward emotions, but in your relationship with Jesus Christ. Paul prayed for the Ephesians to be “rooted and established in love.” The bible tells us that God IS love, so we are to be rooted and established in Him. When you go to the nursery, you can purchase plants that are very small, or you can buy the same plant that is much bigger, more mature, which has a larger root system. When you first accept Jesus into your heart, you are a tiny plant without the strength of a mature root system. But as you grow in your walk with Him, you become more established, your roots run deeper, which gives you more stability to face heavier winds, the bigger storms in life.

God gave you your emotions, but He doesn’t want you to be driven by them, or tossed around in their wake. Instead, devote yourself to becoming grounded in Christ, stay connected to Him, so that even when you look like you’re in danger, your deep-rooted knowledge of His saving grace and your ever-growing strength will keep you from snapping or falling down.