I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)
I was sitting in the garage, crying my eyes out.
I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I was crying because I wanted to kill someone, but since that was not an option, all that was left was crying.
I was playing an older boy in basketball, and he beat me mercilessly, and it was so frustrating. I grew angrier and angrier, and if there is such a thing as murdering someone in your heart, I did it repeatedly that day.
My mom finally came out to help me settle down, but that day was the apex of my hyper-competitive childhood. I wanted to win, to always win, and I hated losing.
One time I was wrestling a friend, which was fine, it was competitive, but then his brother jumped in and the two of them pinned me to the ground. I was spitting mad…and this was my best friend!
Why was I hyper-competitive? I have no idea. I guess I could say I was born that way.
After that tearful, angry basketball game I started to get better control of my competitive nature. I realized it’s just a fact of life, you can’t win every time. But it was definitely still there, under the surface, a beast waiting to rise up.
It really wasn’t until God came in and began changing me that I was able to shift away from wanting to win at everything, all the time, and be able to just enjoy a game and enjoy the friendship and camaraderie of spending time with others.
For example, if you and I went and played a game of tennis today, and you played great and beat me every time, I could still enjoy the game, and even be excited for you and your skill and the great shots you made. But there was a time when I would have been tempted to smash my racket to smithereens…though rackets cost money and I’m very frugal, so I would never actually do that.
I bring this up to say that, just because we might say we are born a certain way, with certain desires, doesn’t mean that is actually who we are. Those feelings are not our identity.
There is a movement in our culture today that says if you have certain feelings, then that is who you are, period. If you don’t roll with those feelings, then you are not being your authentic self, and you are even going to end up a psychological mess, if not downright suicidal.
Have you ever gotten lost? Have you ever felt like you were going north but you were actually going south? Have you ever felt like eating a cookie was exactly what your body needed? Have you ever felt like life would hardly be worth living if you couldn’t live it with that one certain person?
Have you ever felt like, “If I don’t win this game, someone is going to have to die”?
Feelings are great, but they’re a terrible compass. They can just as easily lead you in the wrong direction as they can lead you in the right direction.
What we need is an actual compass. When it comes to life, I have found an effective compass in God’s Word in the Bible, and in listening to the still, small voice of His Holy Spirit.
Being hyper-competitive, even though it was a dominant feeling, and even though, as far as I can tell, I was born that way, according to the Bible it wasn’t leading me in the right direction.
Galatians 5:22-23 talks about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When I was being hyper-competitive, I had none of those. So which was right, the feelings I was born with, or the Bible? Which was better?
I can tell you that being hyper-competitive was vastly worse than having those qualities that God brought into my life, as I listened and received from Him.
Thank God I didn’t believe the lie that my feelings, even if I had felt them from as far back as I can remember, were my identity. God had far better plans.
In Isaiah 55:8-9, God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
God knows best! He made us, and He knows what’s best for us.
So listen. You are not your feelings, even if you’ve had those feelings for a long time. If your feelings don’t line up with God’s Word, then it’s time to go to God and ask Him to help you go from living by your feelings to living by His eternal truth and according to His plans, which are much better.
Sure, you don’t have to take my word for it. All I can say is that I was born a certain way, with certain feelings and certain desires that didn’t line up with God’s Word, and when I decided to come to God, surrender my feelings to Him and do things His way…THAT’S when it finally started getting good, and I started seeing God’s great benefits in my life, including a boat load of: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
May God bless you today.
I’m Doug Apple.
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