Understand what your feelings mean. Focus on your emotions and ask God to help you understand why you’re feeling a certain way. Consider whether your emotions are based on knowledge that’s either right or wrong. Pray for God to show you the truth, and base your emotions on that truth. Think about what your feelings reveal about your priorities – what you value most – and why. Then choose to line up your values with what God says is most valuable. In the process, He’ll transform you. Finally, consider what your emotions reveal about what you believe – and whether or not your beliefs are indeed based on biblical truth. If not, change the way you think, and your feelings will change in the process. Let your emotions lead you to a deeper understanding of your relationship with God.

Grow important emotions. The Bible mentions four emotions that God wants you to grow: love (for God, neighbors, and goodness), joy (in God, good relationships, and the good things in life), hope (in God’s power and promises, and in your eternal destiny), and hatred (of evil). Read the Bible often, noticing what God wants you to feel. Then build those emotional understandings into your life. Don’t settle for less than the best God wants for you, which is to become emotionally whole.

Keep unexpected emotions that come into your life. The feelings that come from unexpected experiences like sudden hardships have a special purpose in your life. If you pay attention to them instead of trying to deny them or throw them away, they’ll help you understand more about yourself and God. Go ahead and fully feel your emotions – no matter how painful they are – because they will lead you to rely on God more and grow closer to Him. Feel grief over loss, joy about victory, sorrow over pain, anger at injustice, etc. Be real with God, yourself, and other people. Trust God to enrich your life as you embrace your unexpected emotions.

Be done with feelings that are directed in destructive ways. Emotions aren’t good or bad in themselves; they’re always tied to an object. When the object of your feelings is bad (something that motivates you to sin), you need to get rid of that emotional expression. Some examples: anger that destroys relationships; love of money; jealousy of others, possessions, or a position; and fear and worry about the future. Get rid of them by focusing on how they hurt you and other people, knowing how God feels about them, determining what they tell you about what’s really important to you in a particular moment, and comparing them to what you should believe about God and yourself.

Connect your heart to God’s heart. Let God’s great love for you motivate you to love Him back and put love at the center of all you do in life. Serve God because you want to, not because you have to. Let your actions flow from passion, just as God’s own actions do. Ask God to keep transforming you every day so you can grow the heart He wants you to have.

Adapted from Feel: The Power of Listening to Your Heart, copyright 2009 by Matthew Elliott. Published by Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Ill., www.tyndale.com. 
Matthew Elliott has a PhD in New Testament studies from the University of Aberdeen. He is president of Oasis International, a Christian distributor of books and Bibles in the English-speaking, developing world. He and his wife, Laura, live in Geneva, Illinois, with their three children.