Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Mastering my Emotions with God's Tools

Laurie Snyman

Mastering My Emotions with God’s Tools - Part 1: What Do You Know

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this beautiful day that the sunshine came out.

Father, we just pray that your Holy Spirit will be with us now.

I pray that you will just speak through Lori, and that Lord, we will hear what we need to, and that you will impress our hearts, and that we will go away with tools, Lord, to be emotionally healthy and strong so that we can be better witnesses for You.

Well, have you ever heard something that just tickled you to death and it just made you excited?

And I went to Albuquerque and I went to a conference and I listened to a speech, a talk at a conference, and it was on emotional intelligence, and it just resonated with me.

I came home and I did a lot of study and I started reading books on it, and I started looking all over, and I just know that this is a godly subject that all of us need to learn, and I want you to know that I believe that just because you're here in this room today, that you're going to have a heart change.

If you allow God to take your heart and touch it for the things that we're working on.

Because God made us emotional human beings, but in our society right now, it has been very, very popular to let us be run by emotions, keyed up, upset, not, you know, being offended, etc.

And God has given us all kinds of help and he's given us tools and many times we are not using it and we need to be using it.

Anyhow I found the principles of emotional intelligence to be a big life changer for me.

I wish that I could say that I practice what I teach all the time.

I had an experience yesterday where somebody said something to me, and right away, it started an emotional response in me, and I, instead of waiting a few minutes to calm down and get keyed up.

I got keyed up and I said something faster than I wanted to say.

But the more that we learn, you will be amazed at what God wants to teach you.

Researchers say that if we improve our emotional intelligence, which is using our intelligence to decide how to act rather than just flying by emotion, that We can improve phobias.

We can improve obsessive thinking, where we're going around in circles.

We can improve our impulse control disorders, which is where we are being, we're in too big of a hurry and we keep doing things that are silly.

And actually it also impacts people with addictive behaviors.

So we need to be emotionally intelligent.

Even 5 hours of training like what we're going to have this week will make a difference for you.

So I want you to know that I've been praying for all of you.

But I want you to know that because of being here, the Lord wants to talk to your heart and he does wanna change how you're impacting other people, including yourself, because this is just such a significant thing.

And I was just telling these ladies over here that I wish that I had known some of these things when I was raising my child, when I first got married, when I was a teenager.

And there are many things that we are not teaching.

But if you look at this, it depends on what your perspective is.

If you're single, you're going to think about your single life.

If you're a mother or a father, you're going to think about your children.

If you are a pastor, you're going to think about your congregation.

Like your perspective is going to be really amazing.

You're going to go, oh, I only wish that I could have helped people with that.

There was a man who was flying his airplane.

He was in a terrible storm, and once he was in the storm, he had to go straight through it to get to the other side because it was too late to get out of it.

His instrument panel said he was losing altitude at 200 feet per second, but he couldn't feel it.

He looked outside and he could see to his side.

It looked like he needed to bank to his left because it would make the plane straight, he thought.

But his instrument panel completely disagreed with him and it said he should bank to the right, and he was really concerned.

Should he follow his instrument panel or his vision?

It was hard to deny his emotions because it felt right.

He had been trained in flight school, and he was told that he needed to always obey his instrument panel, so it was difficult to do, but he did it.

When a pilot feels like it's already level and he has to change 45 degrees to a different direction, it was hard to do, but he decided with a nervous stomach that he was going to just do what that flight panel told him.

He leveled the wings according to the instrument panel.

And when he got out of the storm clouds, he realized what he saw before was a false horizon.

He had made the right decision, which was to follow his instrument panel.

Had the pilot followed his feelings instead of that panel, he would have flown straight into the ground, into the mountains that were right below him, and he and his passengers certainly would have died.

They were never meant to be our guiding system.

They are gauges only to help us with knowing what we need to do.

They can cause them to crash in a lot of relationships, in their jobs, in their relationships with their personal partner, with their children.

And if we could only allow principle, standards, intelligence, God's help to run our lives, we would really not crash as much as we do, because we would have a much better, more stable life.

And so, following his instrument panel did save his life.

Therefore, get wisdom, and in all your getting, get understandings.

You know, we keep saying, oh, that's not common sense.

Depends on who you are, and where you live, and where you came up, right?

Common sense, that's really got a really poor foundation.

But common sense, really when it's God's sense, it never changes.

It's always the same and it's always correct.

And many times we forget to check with God who knows everything.

We need to make our decisions based not on our feelings but what is right and God represents wisdom and he will give us a stable life.

So this person right here is Daniel Goleman.

Now this was He was the 1 who created a book called Emotional Intelligence.

It was on the New York bestseller list in the 90s for a couple of years.

And his research found that it doesn't matter who you are or how smart you are or where you came from or who your parents were or how special somebody thinks you are, that if you don't have emotional intelligence, you're going to have about an 80% chance of having a miserable life.

And if you practice emotional intelligence, no matter what your background is, there's the 80% chance that you will have a stable and healthy life.

And then there are 5 parts of emotional intelligence, and we're going to take 1 part every day.

And I want you to know that I re-numbered them.

I know that they're on the wheel a different way.

We're going to talk about self-awareness.

And number 2, self-regulation, to me, that's the meat of this message.

If you're going to miss anything this week, don't miss that 1.

Mastering My Emotions with God’s Tools - Part 2: In Control

Lord, thank you so much that you have allowed us to be at camp meeting, that you have blessed us with the means to be here, that our leaders, despite financial pressures and concerns, have allowed us to have a camp meeting.

That our camp meeting is as long as it is so that we can study and pray and work on things here.

We thank you for the people here that are congregating, that are going to be leaving this place with the Holy Spirit in their hearts and in renewal and a change.

And I pray, Lord, that you will also do that here in this class, that the people who are wanting a change in their hearts and wanting you to come in will be praying for that during our session so that their minds will be changed Help us dear father as we read scripture today that we will be impressed I know that you work through scripture and that you open our hearts And I just pray Lord that you will anoint my lips so that I can be a vessel for you in your holy name.

Your brain, your brain, did you know that your body sends out, and I thought this was wrong, I thought somebody misquoted it, I look it up, 11, how many, 11 what?

Million bits of censoring information per what?

What if you had to sit there and organize it all?

Brains, by the way, don't just come together.

You know, they say that, you know, some people think that the world came together by 2 balls just smashing into each other.

That's like putting the parts of a watch in an envelope and shaking it up and thinking 2, 000 years later, it's all going to come together.

And it's ludicrous, but the brain is so amazing.

And God has given it to us and we can do a lot with our minds if they're dedicated to him.

11 million pieces of sensory information.

You ever heard that song, The Wonder of it All?

How many of you had heard the term emotional intelligence before yesterday?

Okay, not, How many of you, when you read all those verses in the Bible, recognized that emotional intelligence was being spoken about in the Bible?

We were talking about emotional intelligence yesterday, and I gave you all those scriptures.

And so, do you recognize that even though you didn't know that term, that the Bible's been talking about it for years?

And today we're going to talk about self-regulation, controlling the self.

There are important pieces every day, but to me this is the 1 that I just love because it's so amazing that the Bible's been talking about this for all the time that you've been reading it, but you haven't been catching it.

And now there is actually scientific proof to back up what the Bible's been trying to tell us.

All right, so up there you see a picture of the brain, and what do you see in that area of the brain?

How many of you recognize that sometimes it's not always working as well as you wish?

How many of you recognize you're an emotional person?

The amygdala is in front of your ear and it's on both sides.

So I'd like you to point to your temple in front of your ear and I want you to say the word amygdala.

So when I talk to you in this lecture and I do this, you're going to say what?

The amygdala houses our emotions and our memories.

When someone says something that's a little bit off, have you ever had that happen?

Okay, somebody says something, maybe with a little edge, or with a little disappointment, or with a little bit too much emotion like, you know, you should have, that, have you ever heard that?

When that happens, you have a reaction in your amygdala.

And that is that blood and oxygen carry that thought to your...

Blood and oxygen carry that thought and it goes right to your...

And when someone says something, that's where it is.

Now pay attention, because this is really important.

This action is when your thoughts go into your amygdala, and when you have them in your amygdala, I hear my mic going on and off, is that okay?

When you have something go into your amygdala, if you react at that point, You will probably do that before you think rationally.

That means that when you react fast, in a hurry, you are going to say something that you wish you hadn't said or you're going to say it in a way that packaged it in a poor way and so that you will offend somebody or hurt somebody.

And I think that as you get a little older, your amygdala is like firing a little faster.

So at the bottom of the slide, I'd like you to read that with me, okay?

The more our emotions go up, the less logic we use.

So, when you are in your amygdala, is this the best time for you to handle a problem?

Do you think that the devil can use us when we're in our amygdala?

Does the devil choose to hurt relationships?

Can we, do we all connect with certain people every day, several people in our family or in our workplace or in our community?

And if your amygdala is active and you are working from your amygdala, you are a servant of the devil.

Because that's where things get really stirred up.

So, by the way, when people are working in their amygdala, They could even murder somebody at that point.

Have you ever heard about, well, he killed in a fit of passion?

No, he did, you know, he saw his wife with another man and that's when he shot him and so it was a fit of passion.

Because even the judge and jury, they almost feel sorry for when people are in that point, and that's when they do their behaviors.

It is in haste, it is not a healthy place, and I'm going to tell you that there's more to this.

With every emotion, the amygdala haphazardly pairs what's going on with some memory you have from the past.

Now, There's a lot of people that put a lot of interest in what their brain is telling them.

And let me tell you, your brain isn't as smart as you think it is.

Right or wrong, silly or smart, wise or foolish, it gives you a memory, and it pairs you up with something and it could be helpful and it could be unhelpful.

Mastering My Emotions with God’s Tools - Part 3: Mastering Motivation

Heavenly Father, we want to thank you that in your word, you have everything that we need.

We want to thank you that Laurie's been showing us the texts that can help us when our emotions are good, bad, and ugly.

We ask that you bless us today in this seminar and help us to all learn something that draws us closer to you and to each other.

Intelligence, or we could also call it EI.

And the third part of emotional intelligence is motivation.

There are other words that kind of go with motivation and that is ambition.

And people who are motivated and continue on and work towards a goal are using what?

People who are highly emotional and emotionally intelligent will stand firm despite opposition.

Well, that's again, that's from the secular information, but when you think about applying that to a Christian, what do you think that could mean?

That when there's problems arising in the world, we will still stand with God no matter what.

That we will not depend on our emotions and our feelings, but we will intelligently think about what God has blessed us with and why we want to stay focused on him and we'll ask him for help.

Have you ever heard the saying, when the going gets tough, the tough get going?

And that's a really good saying, isn't it?

Because we need to make sure that when everything is easy that we don't forget how to keep strong when it's tough and when it's tough actually we learn a lot and then when it's easy we get kind of apathetic haven't we've seen that?

Well I was looking on the internet and I saw this this problem.

Do you any of you old like me that liked Ann Landers as you were growing up in the newspaper?

I didn't know I was gonna be a therapist.

I used to read all those and share all I mean save all those columns.

I thought, oh, I just want to be the Ann Landers of the world next.

And she was sharing this, and I thought, wow, this is really good because it's about ambition, enthusiasm, et cetera.

She states, dear whoever it was that's not in Ann Landers anymore, there's a couple of columns out there, I am deeply in love with a man who is 10 years older than I.

Despite our age differences, we have a great time and lots of fun.

My biggest problem is that life is spreading ahead of me and I'm excited about it and I have lots of ambition to meet my goals.

But my fiance has no goals, he has no ambition, he hates his job, he's been trained as a chef but he chooses to do little minor jobs, and he hardly makes any money.

Do you think that a girlfriend would be able to manipulate, harass, or lecture him to get him to move forward?

Because what happens when people do that?

We dig in, and we get more stubborn and angry, right?

Is it right to tell people, you need to come up to my standards and then I could like you better?

Do we ever do that in our churches with some of our new members.

What does it take to change a person's thoughts and feelings and behavior?

If we don't have that in our lives, what's the chances of that?

So then let's say that you married somebody like that and you've done the persuading, convincing, the preaching, et cetera, and it doesn't happen.

I have to give up my expectations of that person, I have to change my attitude, I have to stop thinking that my way is the best way.

So the other thing is that sometimes people settle for those things and still go forward, right?

And they expect that there's gonna be a magical cure and they have a lot of sadness ahead.

But we can get through some of these things because God is really good and he can help us.

Anybody ever read that book, Necessary Endings?

There's a time for everything, a time to give up and a time to go forward.

And sometimes when you are not in a situation yet because you haven't married them, you need to be breaking up, right?

It takes more than water to make soup, right?

And it takes more than love to make a healthy marriage and relationship.

So give people good advice when you see people struggling with that.

How many of you know people who could not stick to anything?

How many of you knew brilliant, intelligent people who looked like they were going to go really far, maybe they even got voted to be the most successful person in their class, and then they didn't accomplish anything.

There are people who give up on parenting.

There's people who give up their children.

There's people who give up on their marriages, their jobs, their schooling.

I mean, I have a brother that quit his college education 1 semester from his business degree.

And bless his heart, at least he's driving a truck.

But I'm just saying that it's really sad when you see people giving up.

High, emotionally intelligent people, according to the books, endure, are determined to meet their goals, and they have a lot of, well, this is my word that I used to grow up on.

How many of you have heard the word gumption?

It seems like we're all born with a certain amount of gumption, but if we don't exercise it, it just rusts out.

Because when we're young, we want our way.

And then when we get older, we go, whatever, I don't want to do that anymore, right?

So sometimes when we grow up, we don't always grow in a healthier way, and we don't always use our stubbornness to get our goals.

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

Now, when it talks about your heart, what do you think it's talking about?

Getting discouraged, giving up, et cetera.

Can you think of any Bible characters that had a lot of gumption?

Mastering My Emotions with God’s Tools - Part 4: Earnest Empathy

Kind Father God, we thank you so much for the day.

We thank you for this time and this time with you.

We thank you for the opportunity to draw ever closer to you.

We thank you for Lori and for all the other seminar speakers and Father, we just praise you and ask that you will help us to carry this stuff home and be a light for you so Jesus can come even sooner.

We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' holy name.

Well, empathy is 1 of the hallmarks of emotional intelligence.

And people with low emotional intelligence don't even try to understand the emotions of others.

That's what we should be doing is trying to understand the emotions of others.

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Mastering my Emotions with God's Tools

Mastering My Emotions with God’s Tools - Part 4: Earnest Empathy

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