Breakthrough: Self-Indulgence

By: Kolleen Lucariello

My emotions have been busy this year as the Lord leads me through this season of breakthrough. At times, it has been difficult, but I’m beginning to recognize that even the difficulty is an answer to many of my prayers—particularly when it comes to what is happening within my emotions.

Through the lens of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, the Lord has been showing me how strongholds of human reasoning develop and form. Paul writes that the weapons we fight with are not worldly weapons, but weapons with divine power to demolish strongholds. He tells us to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5).

I’ve come to realize that strongholds don’t always announce themselves as rebellion. Sometimes they sound like our own thoughts. They can feel like our own emotions. They can even sound reasonable. And sometimes, if I’m honest, I simply want what I want. That realization has brought me to our next breakthrough: self-indulgence.

Self-indulgence is easy to recognize when we see it in obvious forms. We think of excess, gratification, entitlement, or the pursuit of personal pleasure at the expense of others. But what if self-indulgence is more subtle than that? What if it can look like continually giving my emotions the final say? What if “I don’t feel like it” becomes a reason not to obey? What if protecting my comfort becomes more important than pursuing God’s purpose? What if I become so focused on what I need, what I want, what I deserve, or how I feel that my world slowly begins to revolve around me? That’s where this breakthrough gets uncomfortable.

Because self-indulgence isn’t simply about having too much; at its core, it can be about giving myself permission to be governed by myself. And that is exactly the kind of stronghold God wants to expose—not to shame us, but to free us.

Breakthrough isn’t God taking away everything we enjoy. It isn’t learning to deny every desire or ignore every emotion. Rather, it is learning to bring our desires, emotions, thoughts, and choices under the authority of Christ. Because my feelings are real, but they aren't always right. My desires are real, but they aren't always righteous. My comfort matters, but it was never meant to become my master. And if I want to live free, I have to be willing to ask a difficult question: Am I allowing what I feel to lead me—or am I allowing what I know to be true about God to lead me?

God drove this point home for me earlier this year when I walked into our daughter’s home and noticed an odd-looking machine sitting in the center of her living room. She proceeded to demonstrate how to use her new ab machine, and from where I stood, it looked like she was doing it with very little effort.

So, naturally, I decided I’d give it a try. I climbed onto the machine and followed her example. What had looked so easy was anything but. No matter how hard I tried, I could not pull my legs up. My daughter and my grands coached me, encouraged me, and assured me I could do it, but the truth was, I simply didn’t have the core strength needed to roll the bar up. I could not believe I couldn’t do it.

And quite honestly, I was a little offended by what that machine revealed. It exposed a weakness I didn’t know—or perhaps didn’t want to know—I had. And isn’t that often what happens when something exposes what is really going on inside us? We don’t always respond with gratitude for the revelation. Sometimes we get defensive. We make excuses. We blame the circumstance. We compare ourselves to someone else. Or we simply decide we don’t like what the truth is telling us.

The machine wasn’t my enemy. It didn’t create my weakness. It revealed it. And I think that is part of what God does when He brings us into a season of breakthrough. He lovingly puts His finger on the places we have learned to ignore, excuse, protect, or indulge. Not because He is trying to make us feel bad about ourselves, but because He wants us to become aware of what is keeping us from becoming more like Christ.

That day, the machine revealed a physical weakness. But God has been showing me that self-indulgence can reveal something much deeper: the tendency to trust what I feel more than what I know to be true. When my feelings tell me I can't, I want to believe them.

When obedience is uncomfortable, I want to choose comfort. When truth confronts me, I want to defend myself. When I don't get what I want, I can easily make my feelings the evidence that something is wrong. But feelings are reporters, not rulers. They can tell me something is happening inside me, but they were never designed to determine what is true.

And that is where self-indulgence can become a stronghold. It isn't always about indulging in something excessive or sinful. Sometimes it is simply indulging myself by allowing my feelings to have the final word.

God's invitation is different. He isn't asking me to ignore my emotions. He's teaching me to bring them to Him; to examine them in the light of His Word and allow His truth to have greater authority than what I happen to feel in the moment. The breakthrough comes when I can say: “I feel this—but I don't have to be ruled by it.” Because what I feel may be real. But what God says is true.

We hope you will find a chapter and join us for this month's conversation.