Thursday, October 1, 2026
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
How Our Emotions Distract Us From God
Every day we are on a battlefield, and our enemy uses every opportunity to try to weaken us or pull us off our path so that our focus is not on God. We have to be vigilant and stand firm. Our emotions can distract us from God and his path and purpose for our lives faster than a lot of things, because we often operate from our emotions. We live in the moment and if the moment is chaotic, traumatic, or shakes us in some way, we tend to get wrapped up in the emotions those moments provoke. Our emotions can cloud our judgement or cause us to spiral into anger, sadness, loneliness, depression, and many other feelings that can distract us and cause us to temporarily forget that our God is still in control and surprised by nothing.
How can we keep our emotions from distracting us from God?
With Thanksgiving - Especially On the Hard Days
It is hard to remember to be grateful on the days when our current circumstances feel so heavy. Anxiety can eat us up and steal our peace. The church in Philippi must have been struggling since Paul spoke about it here in Philippians 4. We can take these words to heart and know that they will apply in our lives as well, especially on hard days. Giving thanks may seem like the last thing we want to do, and we don’t have to give thanks for sad and tragic circumstances. But we can keep our focus on God by keeping our focus on who he is, no matter the circumstances.
Be honest with God when you pray – When we pray, it is just us and Him, in intimate communion with one another. We can focus on him and who he is in our lives. We can remember his faithfulness and the things he has already done. We can surrender to him with open hearts – every fear, worry, petition, heartache. He will take what we surrender and exchange it for his peace. We can keep that peace on the hard days by focusing on him and his truth.
Focus on His promises – The Bible is full of God’s promises. When you are overwhelmed tell yourself what his promises are and the truth that is in his word. We can fill our heads with his promises and truth, even about what we are going through. We can also play worship music to keep our mind on him. These truths and promises will fill our minds so that we can recall them easily when we are in the middle of a hard day.
Satan loves to whisper in our ear. It may be his greatest tactic against us because if he can make us doubt the truth of God’s word or the certainty of his promises, we will not be effective for God’s kingdom. He is the father of lies and he wants us to believe his lies about God and ourselves – that God is not good, that he can’t use us, or that we don’t even deserve his love so he couldn’t really love us. But when we know the truth, we have to tell ourselves when we don’t feel it. Sometimes on hard days it is difficult to feel the truth we know.
Focusing on difficult circumstances, the loss of loved ones, or how someone has hurt us will take our focus off God and his goodness. Our impossible circumstances can cause us anxiety because we are focusing on ourselves and our own impossible ability to fix them. When we get our focus back on Him where it belongs, and trust Him, we can find peace in our heart and strength to stand firm against the enemy’s tactics.
What does the Bible say?
Look up the attributes of God and memorize as many of them as you can and repeat them back to yourself when you need to re-focus on him.
Find a couple of scriptures about peace that you love and memorize so you can speak that truth back into your heart and mind when emotions derail you.
God understands the hard days and getting distracted by emotions, but he wants us to come to him. He wants to take our burdens and give us peace. And that never changes. He never changes. Our worlds change and the ground shifts all around us at times, but we can find everlasting
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17 CSB
