Most substantial transformation in our lives is catalyzed by how we feel about something rather than what we know about something.

What we know is very critical.  It is especially critical to know what God has revealed to us in His Word and His Son and His creation.  Beyond knowing, it is also critical to feel and to do.  I am not loving God with my whole self unless I know what He has said and feel the appropriate feelings about what He has said and do the things He said I should do. 

Again, we are more likely to embark on substantial personal transformation based on how we feel about something.  

Consider this example about personal finances.  Imagine yourself in significant debt, with marginal cash flow each month, with no financial margin, with aging cars and home, with your children approaching the college years, and with no prospect of increased income for many years to come.

Something needs to change.  What will motivate that change?

Here is what you know about your situation:  The stress of undisciplined finances contributes to physical and emotional illness.  Financial troubles are the number one or number two cause of trouble listed in 90% of American divorces.  The financial mess is causing a lot of tension in your home.  The financial mess is causing you to lose sleep.  The financial troubles are causing anxiety in your spouse and children.  The financial struggles prevent you from giving much to God’s work.  There are solutions to this problem “out there” somewhere.  Debt is a burden.  Debt compounds terribly when not aggressively paid down.  Financial struggles cause you to feel inadequate and to compare yourself with others who are doing much better—especially other peers and siblings. 

You know a lot about this financial situation.  However, just knowing generally has little or no effect on choosing new financial behaviors.  You can continue for a long, long time in your problems with this knowledge and maybe never change your behavior despite gaining more knowledge about finances and their causes and effects. 

However, what if one day you got up and the finances were immediately pressing you down and you began to feel differently about your problem?  What if the feelings of low-level frustration and general anxiety changed? 

Here are the new feelings about the situation: You feel angry that this problem has burdened you for so long.  You feel angry with yourself for not doing something about this.  You feel intense anxiety about the affect this financial mess is causing in your heart and in your marriage and in your children.  You feel excited that something much better could be gained.  You feel hopeful that this could be fixed.

This simple contrast—what you know about something and how you feel about something—could be applied to perhaps every area of life transformation:  sharing your faith, enhancing your career skills, improving your fitness, improving your finances, tackling your disorganized stuff, beginning to be a life-long learner, finding a new niche for yourself, and on and on.

At this very moment you know a lot about all these areas where life transformation is needed.  What is probably lacking are the necessary feelings about these areas.  So far you have not felt angry enough or not excited enough or not hopeful enough or not burdened enough or not afraid enough to change your ways.

I have told you the story of getting up one day a couple of years ago and feeling overwhelmed and angry and hopeful—all at the same time—about the amount of stuff I owned and about the mess it was in and about the wasted time and energy that it cost me.  This week I got rid of my 7,300^th item.   I have a long ways to go but I am making genuine progress and it began with some very strong feelings inside me.

I have told you the story about getting up one day 15 years ago with 13 separate personal debts and no cash margin and my kids almost ready to start college and I felt so anxious and so angry and so hopeful and so zealously committed to the vision of a better future—felt all of this at the same time—that I took substantial action.  Kathi and I sold our dream home and downsized into a “fixer upper.”  We are substantially closer to some financial margin and man it feels great.  It all began with feeling horrible about my state.

I have told you the story about getting up one day and being sick to death of my emotional bondages and the path of counseling that I took.  It began with a feeling of emotional illness.

I have told you the story about getting up one day in my early twenties and feeling horrible about wasting my life watching TV every spare minute, and turning it off and beginning to read and get into ministry and go to seminary and apply myself to my life, relationships, and ministry.

All these things happened not because of what I knew but because I felt something so intensely that as much as it was within my power I simply was not going to live with the old realities any longer.

I was emotionally fed up and therefore I acted.  Or I was emotionally hopeful and I acted.  Or I was emotionally angry and I acted.  Or I was emotionally excited and I acted.

I would bet the farm that you have pieces of your life that you know are messed up.  I would bet the farm that you have known about these areas for a long time and that you have known the consequences for a long time and have known the solutions for a long time. 

Your problem is that you have not gotten yourself sufficiently emotionally stirred up about those areas.  Your feelings are not low enough or not high enough.  What you need is either a good meltdown or a good “Wheel-of-Fortune-I-just-won-a-Ford-pickup” excitement or both.

Sometimes emotional stability is not helpful.  It is not helpful when it leaves us drifting along in the mess that we know so much about.