You’re the boss of your life, not your feelings. Don’t let your emotions run your life.
~ Joel Osteen.
This morning I was toying with an idea of what to write for today's Unshackled Moment and not really liking it. I saw a notification that someone had retweeted yesterday's UM, and I clicked over to their Twitter page to thank them. I saw another of their recovery oriented retweets, and gave that a click as well. Then I stopped myself. I had to. Youtube, Facebook and Twitter can be quite dangerous if you're trying to do something quickly and not wanting to chase rabbits here and there for who knows how long.
The person I had followed to another page is a recovery writer, and yes, I actually hit the follow button. Looks like he's got some good stuff on his page. I didn't want to read too much though, as I didn't want to influence my morning's writing. I was just about to leave the page and go to my daily readings while letting my mind subconsciously chew on the theme for the day when I saw the quote I opened up with today from Joel Osteen. The quote was tweeted with the comment that while this person was not a big fan of Osteen's the quote does make sense. At first glance I felt the same way.
I have a friend in the rooms who loves to remind us that not everything you think and feel is real. Feelings can fool you. A great man no longer with us used to say that you can't go by your feelings, but it is nice sometimes to feel what you're going on. Both of these ideas are about holding onto truth that has made us free and going on, faithful to the spiritual principles in every area of our life, no matter what our emotions tell us. Our emotions, our feelings, do not change truth and do not really matter when it comes down to the nitty gritty of staying free from bondage. What matters is not how we feel but what we do. We can't let our emotions blow us about like a ship that has no rudder.
Knowing that taking our cues from our emotions is not always a wise thing to do, I started to click the heart/like button. Then it hit me, what made me hesitate when I first read the quote. From a purely recovery standpoint, dealing only with addiction, I actually can not agree with Osteen's quote. It makes sense on the surface, just enough sense to be dangerous. Step one: I can't. Step two: He can. Step three: I'll let Him. More accurately, step three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Basically, from a recovery standpoint only, this is 180 degrees in the wrong direction from the the twelve steps to freedom. Sorry, but no. If you want to get clean and sober and stay that way, you better not be the boss of your life. You can not manage your own life. Give it up, surrender or die. The rest is the part that makes sense. You can't let emotions rule, but not because you are the boss, rather because you have surrendered to someone higher and your emotions no longer have the right to reign.
I say the quote is dangerous in that context because when addicts and alcoholics forget that they are not the boss of their own lives anymore they tend to relapse, and relapse far too often results in death. But Dalyn, you and the other writer were both taking Osteen our of context! He's not a addiction counselor. He's a minister speaking to a more general audience. Actually, if you thought anything in that neighborhood, I agree so much that I had to write this and put off my earlier idea for another day. I don't have any issue with the other writer. I followed him on Twitter. I believe I understand the retweet of Osteen and why it made sense. I almost clicked like myself, because the second half of the quote is something we need to remember and be reminded of. But Osteen has a huge following, and he just told them something as dangerous as it's okay for children to play in the street. If only one person gets the warning I heard my spirit cry out, I had to shout it. Get out of the road!
I'm not confining Osteen's quote to recovery. I am a recovery minister, but a minister. I am coming at this not from a secular 12 Step place but rather from using the steps only as a tool to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. There is one God, creator of all, who is higher and above all, and it is He of whom I write and preach. Yes, I preach freedom from the bondage of addiction, but when I say recovery, I'm talking about recovery from the bondage of self to freedom in Christ. I don't care what the chains are. There are people who have never ingested chemicals or alcohol, or gambled or let their spending get out of control or fed their pain or any other thing the steps have been used for on a large scale who are in bondage and need to recover. We all have sinned and fallen short. We are all captives and broken without Jesus.
So I had to look at this quote as it was intended originally, not as a statement to addicts and alcoholics alone, but as a statement sent out to Christians and potential Christians from a minister of God. Like the other writer, I am also not a big fan of Osteen's, and haven't read or listened to him. I am not saying anything about him or his ministry as a whole. I am addressing only this quote, but when a person sends out a quote, and it's actually something they themselves said, they are choosing not to add or delete anything else contextual. Therefore the quote must be interpreted as it is read. And I'm sorry, but as a stand alone statement, which is how this was put out by Osteen (or his people), from a Christian standpoint, never mind recovery only, this quote is not just wrong, but the very opposite of everything Christianity is about.
You are not your own. You were bought with a price. You belong to God. In order to belong to Christ, you must daily die to self. You are no longer the person you used to be, but a new creation in Christ Jesus, protected and guided by the Holy Spirit in complete submission and surrender to Daddy. No, you are not your own boss, and while there are decisions and choices that we as servants are allowed the freedom to make for ourselves, and we shouldn't let our emotions control us, we are not the ones in control. God is. The very second we step into the driver's seat of our life we have stepped outside of the will of God for us.
It may seem like I'm making a big deal out of something that that isn't that big of a deal. Only it is. We have to remember the truth that made us free and gave us life, life worth living and abundant. The idea of you are or can be your own boss is the lie from the garden that began the race to the grave from the start. That's a pretty big deal. It is the opposite of everything Jesus said, of everything that the Scriptures tell us from Genesis to Revelations. There is nowhere were we are ever allowed to believe or act like we are in control instead of Daddy without it leading to destruction and death in our life, and that is a huge deal. Today, let us remember that we are not the boss of us and stay surrendered to the One who is the boss in order to be free from being misled by our emotions, our fears our situations or even our own will.
Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on
March 15, 2016.
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