"What's the wise thing to do when emotions are high and appetites are inflamed?" (Andy Stanley)

What does a wise person do when appetites and emotions are inflamed?  Emotions and appetites influence our ability to make wise decisions.

Here is a great podcast by Andy Stanley on making wise decisions

http://northpoint.org/messages/ask-it/hold-my-hand/

Stop thinking so much

and get something done!  I have noticed that I am a thinker.  Sometimes I overthink.  In fact, the very fact that I am writing this may suggest I am overthinking over thinking.  Ha!  Ha!

I have sometimes wondered if the best psycho therapy would be to go to a far away land and serve on a mission field  (people who need water, food, medicine, etc, and ultimately a relationship with Christ).  If getting away is not possible, I have thought that unplugging (get off the internet and cell phone) and going to help someone build a house, plow a field, fix a roof, sweep the floor, bake a cake, mow a lawn, etc. may be the next best option for someone battling anxiety or depression.  I have felt most fulfilled after mission trips, soup kitchens, and volunteer labor work.  The focus was taken off my needs and put onto someone else's needs over an extended period of time.  Anxiety is focus on problems.  If we do something for someone else, the action allows us to get our minds off ourselves and anxiety decreases.

Here is a quote I found and liked out of Mansfield's Book of Manly Men: "Christian life is action: not a speculating, not a debating, but a doing.  One thing, and one, in this world has eternity stamped upon it.  Feelings pass; resolves and thoughts pass; opinions change.  What you have done lasts- lasts in you.   Through the ages, through eternity, what you have done for Christ- that, and only that, you are."  Frederick W. Robertson