The Daily CHEW™
Moving God’s Love from Head to Heart for Christian Professionals
You have been in that room. The conversation heats up, stakes are high, and you feel a surge—frustration, disappointment, maybe even anger—rising in your chest while everyone watches to see what you will do with it. For years you were told to “keep emotions out of it,” as if wise leadership meant shutting down what you feel and powering through with logic alone. But strong feelings are not the enemy. They are early‑warning signals about what you value, where something is off, and where God may be inviting you to lead with more clarity, courage, and compassion. The shift is not from “emotional” to “unemotional,” but from reactive emotion to stewarded emotion—naming what is happening inside you, bringing it before God, and then leading your team with a steadier, wiser presence.
Clarity
Where do you most often feel your emotions surge as a leader—budget cuts, missed commitments, sideways comments in meetings, or resistance to a change you are sure is right? Notice how quickly you either clamp down (stuff it) or blast out (vent it), instead of pausing long enough to ask what your strong feeling is trying to tell you about what matters here.
Hear
“Be angry and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent” (Psalm 4:4). Scripture reveals that God does not deny strong emotions; He directs them. God works through your feelings as raw material for wisdom, inviting you to pause, ponder, and respond in a way that aligns with His character rather than letting the moment run you. As you receive this, you start to see that emotional awareness is not a liability in leadership; it is part of how God reshapes you into a steadier, more discerning shepherd for the people you lead.
Exchange
If I really believed God’s love is wise and steady enough to meet me in the middle of my strongest feelings, how would that change the way I notice, name, and steward my emotions with my team today?
Walk
In your next tense meeting or difficult conversation today, take a 5‑second internal pause before you respond: silently name your dominant feeling in one word, breathe once, and then choose one calm sentence that connects that feeling to the shared goal (for example, “I care a lot about getting this right, which is why I feel strongly about this point—let’s slow down and look at it together”). If this is the only thing I do from this CHEW today, it is enough.
With you on the journey,
Ryan
If you had to put this into one sentence for today, what would you say God is inviting you to rest in or return to?
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