Winning the Battle Over Negative Emotions

Today's notes are from the first topic in the series Winning the Battle Over Negative Emotions. These notes are provided by Brittany Dixon from College Connect! Sign up to join College Connect today on Twitter (ue3College) or facebook (Urban Empowerment College Connect), blog at uecollegeconnect.wordpress.com or email directly at ue3collegeconnect@gmail.com.


Introduction

At some point your actions become dictated on how you feel.

Emotions are an active state of consciousness at which joy, hate sorrow or fear is experience as distinguish from cognitive or a volitional state of consciousness.
• In other words: You choose to act the way you act. Your Emotions are conscious.
Emotions are any strong agitation of the feelings actuated by experiencing the love, hate and fear and is accompanied by physiological changes such as
• Increase heart beat
• Increase respiration
• Crying
• Sharing
Some of us let emotions get the best of us. We sometimes let people get the best of us. If you have ever caught yourself shaking and crying because of someone else, you have let a person control how you feel.

Emotions are also defined as strong feelings
• Nothing wrong with this as long as they don’t control you.
• They can be destructive:
*They can destroy those around you: As Bishop says “hurt people hurt people
*Pastor Chris has found out: Bitter people bite people!
+When you are bitter, you don’t care who is being nice to you. A bitter person will bite someone else
+ Bitterness causes you to become critical of
+Other people
+ Church
+ What someone else does etc…
Negative Emotions cause you to be in denial about who you really are.
• When you are bitter, you put the blame on someone else
• But in actuality, where you go, if are you bitter, it MUST be about you.
• You might be the common denominator in every situation that causes you to be bitter.
• Negative emotions or bitter causes you to:
o Displace bitterness on someone. It’s really about who you are and how give someone the chance to control how you feel.

Studying Hannah’s bitterness and how she overcame it:
• 1 Samuel 1:10- Prophet Samuel was born out of the bitter and prayerful struggle by his mother Hannah.
o In the first 9 verses it reveals why Hannah was bitter.
Introduction of Story
• Hannah was burdened because she was unable to give birth.
• Sometimes there is a burden that will cause you to not give birth spiritually.
• Some of us have no peace, no satisfaction.
• But later Hannah does give birth. And before you give birth you have to have a burden. Birth follows the burden.
• Sometimes you struggle with something so God can birth something out of you before you can birth.
• Burden is:
o Something that God has placed on the inside of you so God can use exactly what He has given you.
Your life is a spiritual journey that will include
• A burden
• The birth
• A blessing
o Note: If what you are birthing is not turning into a blessing, it might not be a pregnancy from God!!
o Some of us has struggled and we have given birth to some things, but it isn’t giving birth to a blessing!
o If your birthing process is making everything around you miserable, it may not be a pregnancy from the Lord.
Characterizing Bitterness
• Bitterness becomes Personal because it can happen to you
• Bitterness is relational
o V2- Hannah had Children and was bitter with her Husband’s other wife.
o We see bitterness can destroy relationships.
o If you are involved with people there is a chance bitterness will creep in. The enemy knows that we as people are emotional.
• Bitterness can be residential
o V6- Bitterness can live with you.
o You cannot allow bitterness in your house!! Don’t let people in your own house dictate how you feel!
• Bitterness becomes physical
o When you let someone have control with you, it starts to show up in your physical.
o V7 – Hannah wept and did not eat. This is physical bitterness. She lost weight, lost her appetite. The strain of all her bitterness
o When we’re bitter it manifest through our mouth, we start to get passive aggressive against people.
• Bitterness becomes Emotional
o V8- her husband tells her “Why are you acting like this, I love you.”
o Some of us don’t know what love is and we allow our bitterness to determine what we believe is love.
o Sometimes we cannot love people because what has happened to us.
Hannah Got over it!
• We cannot continue to hold on to bitterness we’ve been learning for years.
• Bitterness is like swallowing poison and waiting on someone else to die.
• To overcome bitterness Hannah:
o Went to the house of the Lord. Forsake not the assembly of the saints! Is there is something wrong, go to the elders of the church and the will pray specifically for your situation. Don’t rely on TV church! Stay connected!
o She turned to God quickly. V10- Get on your knees and pray. Don’t put to much time between bitterness and prayer because bitterness festers and can lead to anger!
o V11- Have an honest talk to God.
 Look at yourself and no one else. Focus on the Main problem, and that’s YOU
 Stop blaming stuff on other people.
o Your Circumstance may not change, but you have to change your attitude!
o V13- Treat God’s people correctly with respect
o V20- In the middle of her bitterness she had to pray!