Our emotions do at least two important things: [1] indicate the temperature of our worship, and [2] alert us when our worship is stalled. Negative emotions, like anxiety and anger, can remind us to call on Jesus for his power and influence. Positive emotions, like peace and joy, can strengthen our worship.

Through pleasure and pain, our emotions help us to tweak our worship-art. If we know what it feels like to be emotionally stable, we will also notice when we are not bearing healthy emotional fruit.

“...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering [patience], gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness [humility], temperance [moderation]...”

-Gal 5:22

A healthy plant pulls water up through its roots in order to provide beautiful blossoms and nourishing fruit to others. Having an ongoing, intimate connection with God roots us, like plants, in his love. When we feel loved, positive emotions flow like water that moves from our roots to our fruit. We become loving, joyful, peaceful, patient and gentle instead of rude, selfish, lazy, anxious and grim. 

Negative emotions are like weeds in the garden of the soul. They alert us that our souls need attention. By noticing a bad emotion and gently pulling on its roots, we can discover why we feel a certain way. This prompts us to solve our problem and get rid of the root cause. This is normal and healthy. 

Emotions follow mental pathways like water through the pipes of our minds. Leaky, yucky feelings alert us that one of our thought paths may have a crack of deception. 

Unless this bad thinking is repaired, the pressures of daily life can cause leaks, like anger, to spray onto other people and damage our relationships. When our thinking becomes healthy again, our pipes carry love and beauty from God to the world.

Assignment 8: Write an example of how a bad emotion alerted you that you needed to solve a problem in your life.