I am a person who deals very deeply with frustrations. I often struggle with emotions, as I’m probably just a twinge more emotional than most people that I personally know, therefore my struggle is to constantly evaluate what I’m feeling, or how I am feeling and compare that to the light of the truth of Christ.

Then there are the times when I don’t want to even look into the light because I know that I’ll be found out. Sometimes I would rather wallow in my emotions, especially the ones of self-pity and self-doubt, rather than face the hard work of slogging out of those feelings of being overwhelmed. The petulant kid in me longs to kick and scream, but knowing that is not a socially acceptable behavior for an almost 40 year old man, I just rage on the inside, and allow the turbulent waves of emotions to crash over me as I peer over the rocky shore.

I think for me, and for all of us, there is a moment when we have to make a real decision. We can either be overwhelmed by life or we can overcome life. In either instance we are OVER it, but our choices in those key moments will determine how over it we are. For instance, we have so many things that we need right now, and a few weeks ago we were close to getting one of those needs met. At the last minute, it fell through. So I found myself in my car in a full on rage against God. I was overwhelmed. Yet, as I thought about it more and more in the next few days, I began to see some light in the situation, which helped me to overcome.

Christ knows what it is like to be overwhelmed by moments. The Garden of Gethsemane is probably the best example of this that we find in Scripture. He prayed to God, “If you are willing, please let this cup pass away from me.” We see a man under extreme duress. Yet in that same moment, he steeled himself against emotional undercurrents and followed that up with, “Nevertheless not my will, but Yours, be done.”

He chose to overcome.

I believe that He had a choice. He was over it either way, but He chose to overcome, which paved the way for all of us to do the same.

It is not a sin to be overwhelmed. It is not a sin to be emotional. But it IS a sin to allow our emotions to control us to such an extent that we lose sight of the Overcomer who died and now LIVES to help us overcome anything that happens to us in life.

So, you’re over it, right? Well, which way are you swinging?

Be blessed.