Pursuing Your Goals #2: When You Don't Feel It

In order to develop resolve in your heart you have to begin to change some deeply impressed emotional & mental patterns that have previously dictated your life. Whatever you have allowed to become a pattern in your life has also become an expectation. When the going gets tough & your thoughts have caused you to feel like you need to quick, whatever you have consistently done in those situations has directly or indirectly become an expectation for your life. Your thoughts will always trigger your emotions & when you allow your emotions to dictate where you are going to go, you most often get into trouble; children are led by their emotions, not mature adults.

Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet, tells us that “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The reality is that our emotions often lie to us. As a result, we sell ourselves short because we don’t feel like we can continue. We submit to our emotions & they become our masters. The minute you don’t do something because you don’t feel like it, even though you know you need to do it, you have allowed your emotions to become your master.

When you set your mind to waking up, the alarm clock goes off, & your eyes fight to open, the first things that you say to yourself is, “I don’t feel like getting up.” You think you don’t want to get up & you feel like you don’t want to get up. Most often people stop there. That is the time to push. Do what you need to do because you have resolved to do it. When you don’t feel it, do it anyway!

If you live only by your initial feelings you will never accomplish the dreams & goals God has placed in your heart. If first place Olympic runners stopped whenever they ‘felt’ tired they would never cross the finish line. If world renowned authors stopped whenever their hands ‘felt’ weak they would never have finished a book. If Nelson Mandela would have given up his fight for equality when he ‘felt’ fear then his people would still be polarized. If Jesus quit when he ‘felt’ pain & rejection humanity would still be lost. You have to train your heart to have resolve.

You have to learn how to “set your heart on things above,” (Colossians 3:1); this means you have to make an intentional choice to choose against your emotions at times. You have to train your heart to have resolve by constantly reminding yourself of the goals & plans that God has placed before you. You have to learn to speak to your heart & say, “I know you are feeling like quitting, but there is no turning back,” or “I know you are feeling left out because you can’t go out with everyone right now since you’re on a budget, but you have determined to be debt free! No turning back.”

When pursuing your goals, resolve must be the position of your heart. Without a heart of resolve you will continually fall into the old patterns, ways of thinking, & emotional pits that have kept you where you are up to this point. It is time to train your heart to have resolve.

Let’s Do This Together:

In what one area have you allowed an old emotional pattern to become an expectation for your life? What is one specific way to train your heart to have resolve in order to combat that old pattern?