My wife and I bragged all through my son’s “terrible twos” about how great a kid we had. We looked at other parents who had hellions in their carts at Walmart and smugly grinned as we looked down at our little angel. Then three hit. He had big feelings, and he let us know it. At a birthday party for my dad at a nice restaurant, surrounded by family and friends, my son decided that he would be that hellion, and we left early because the feelings won.
As adults, we have more self-control than a hungry three-year-old, but our feelings can’t be allowed to define our actions. Our feelings are real, yet they are not the core of who we are. We are people who have feelings, and it is our responsibility to look at them, name them, and decide what to do with them rather than obey them automatically. Over time, God intends not just to restrain our feelings, but to retrain them so they align more closely with His heart.
Where do these big feelings come from, though? Sometimes, out of nowhere, we have a visceral reaction to what someone said or did, and I believe we are being silently formed. We move through life mindlessly consuming podcasts, websites, social media, music, movies, and television, assuming they are harmless distractions from “real life,” when in reality the ideas they carry are slowly shaping how we think and react. You are actively choosing now who you will become, and even when you rightly enjoy something for entertainment, you are still standing in a river of information flowing into you. The real question is whether those waters are refreshing your soul or poisoning it. Curating the flow of content into your life is crucial to your formation.
If you do not like who you are becoming, you must change what you ingest. We should observe and interrogate what we are consuming, and when it does not align with who God calls us to be, we must reject it rather than letting it form us, and replace it with inputs that help us love God and others. Over time, new inputs and repeated obedience slowly reshape our emotional reflexes so that we begin to feel and respond more like Jesus instead of simply acting out of unchanged desires.
Maybe big feelings and public temper tantrums are not your battle, but you have identified areas where you long to grow. The battle feels tough, and the results are not there yet. It can be so frustrating to start making positive changes and wake up day after day feeling like nothing has changed. Real transformation almost always includes a lag between the work you start and the fruit you can see. Whether you are growing in discipleship, building new habits, repairing relationships, or changing how you work, yesterday’s obedience almost never shows up as today’s visible breakthrough.
When you believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and cares for you deeply, and that He wants to see your life transformed, the only response that makes sense is to live as if He is actually trustworthy. Trust in that kind of God should not produce a small, risk-averse life, but a bold willingness to attempt things that feel bigger than where you are, because you are filled with His power, wisdom, and love. This gives you hope, even when you are stuck in the lag.
Much like changing eating patterns or starting a workout plan, you feel the effort heavily at first while seeing almost no visible results. In relationships, old patterns can still echo even after you have repented and begun a new journey. The call is to keep doing your work. Audit your inputs, including what you scroll, watch, and listen to, and begin filling your life with daily obedience to His word and pauses to hear the Spirit’s input into your life. Show up, repent, obey, love, and trust that God is at work so that, in His time, a harvest will come.