Excerpt from my reflection on Watchman Nee’s book, The Character of the Lord’s Worker

Another of the five most important lessons I learned from Nee is that people must not think that their emotions are themselves. When our words come from our feelings, they do not represent our true self. In fact, they will change as our feelings change.

According to Nee, our mind is also not our heart, and our heart and emotions are different. If we think that we love God, for example, but do not truly follow him, we are deceived. Nee explained, "A man [or woman] can live in his feeling so much that he no longer knows what his true self is." People sometimes come to believe that their feelings are themselves. To get past this problem, we must not trust our feelings, and must not recognize them. In this way, we will not live by our feelings. Our feelings are not ourselves, and we must not be controlled by them.

We must especially not be controlled by the fear of suffering. If we allow ourselves to be controlled by the fear of suffering, we will love ourselves too much to sacrifice ourselves for God, and will not be faithful in all that we do. We cannot be influenced by our fear of other people, or by their "affections and displeasure," because this causes us to stray.

In my own life, I must not believe that my feelings are myself. At times, I find myself believing that my feelings are who I am. I make a decision based on my feelings, then find that my feelings change, and that I want to change my decision. I must know my true self so that I can learn to not trust my feelings. Not that my feelings are never valid, but they do sometimes distort my perception of my true self. I find that keeping a list of the things I desire in life and of my true values helps me to remember who my true self is when my emotions interfere with my decision making process.

I must also realize how easily I can deceive myself by believing that my feelings are the same as my heart, and that my heart and emotions are different. If I believe that I value something, I must examine my life to see if I actually practice this value. If I believe that I value something, but do not practice this value, I can then know that I myself do not truly value it. For example, if I believe that I value having a few quality items over having many cheap ones, but find that my house if filled with many cheap items, my true self does not value quality over quantity. Just because I feel that I have this value does not mean that it is part of me.