All posts by mjharvell

Welcome, friend—I’m glad you’ve pulled up a chair on the front porch of my little corner of the internet. My name is Michael Joe Harvell, and I live my life with one simple mission: to glorify God, encourage people, and leave this world a little better than I found it. I’m a husband, father, pastor, writer, Jeep enthusiast, and front-porch thinker who believes that life is best lived on purpose. I serve as pastor of Eureka Baptist Church in Anderson, South Carolina, where I get the joy of preaching, teaching, and walking with people through the ups and downs of everyday life. Over the years, I’ve discovered that faith isn’t just about Sunday mornings—it’s about living every single day in the presence and power of God. I’m also an author. My books—including The Grace Exchange: How Forgiven People Forgive People and The Word Works—grow out of the sermons, stories, and lessons I’ve learned on this journey. I write in a style that’s conversational, a little front-porch-rocking-chair, and full of stories, quotes, and Scripture that point us back to the goodness of God’s Word. When I’m not writing or preaching, you might find me sitting outside with my Bible and journal, cruising the backroads in my Jeep Gladiator, or sharing a meal and some laughs with the good folks God has put in my life. I love helping people find peace in their spirit, strength in their body, and encouragement in their soul. This blog is simply an extension of that mission. Here you’ll find devotions, encouragement, reflections, and practical insights for living a life of purpose, peace, and joy. So grab a cup of coffee, pull up a rocking chair, and stay awhile—I’d be honored to walk this road of faith with you.
Blogroll, emotions, faith, Healing, life, Uncategorized

The Positivity Of Negativity!

Negative Emotions -Everyone of us have them and many of us have no clue what to do about them. I grew up, believing negative emotions were bad and to be avoided at all cost, so I spent most of my life trying to not have them, only to realize that I was fighing a losing battle. So I did the next best thing I could think of and that was to pretend they did not exist, which was really a great big mistake, because then they kick your behind and leave you laying on the side of the road for dead.

It has taken me many years, but I have finally started to learn that the best things to acknowledge them, own them and most importantly – to learn from them. Negative emotions are feelings that usually generate an attitude of being sad or mad and can cause you to not want to be around others, act out in detremental ways or retreat and isolate yourself from life. If left unchecked, negative emotions can lead to being miserable, depressed and even dangerous, but if acknowledged and ultimatley owned, they can become some of our greatest teachers, leading us to discover incredible things about our life and it’s living.

I will not take the time to go into all the ugly details here, but there have been several times in my life, when the negative emotions started to get the best of me. I have “felt” that list up above in the picture and been weighted down to the place that I thought I was going to drown under the weight of it. In fact, there have been times when I felt I was ready to give up and sink to my no more.

As I look back on all those terrible, horrible and ugly times, the interesting thing is that no matter how dark my lremedy have gotten, there was always a light. It may have been a very small speck at the end of the tunnel, but it has always been there. At times shining bright as a beacon for others and at others times, just a little speck, a gentle reminder that even though I may feel like it, I am not alone.

God created me and gave me my life, but this human experience is not all that there is. Wayne Dyer says that we spend our lives as human beings looking to have a spiritual experience, when in reality we are spiritual beings getting to have a human experience.

If you were just paying attention, then I revealed the secret to learning from and overcoming your negative emotions, rather than having your negative emotions overcome you. Did you catch it? Let me just tell you – PERSPECTIVE MATTERS! How you look at things and how you see things matter and if you are looking as a human being, then you are defeated, but if you are looking as a spiritual being, then the negative emotions that are allowed to come into your life, must have some higher purpose???

This is why the Scriptures teach us: “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” -2 Timothy 1:7 As spirtual beings God has given us power, love and self-control. Individually all of these are magnificent and powerful gifts, but collectively they allow us to live, grow and develop on a whole new level.

Sometimes God doesn’t change your situation because He is trying to change your heart. This is why God allows the negative to flow into our life, because we have the power to learn from it and change it into something much more powerful, enabling us to experience the things only experienced by the divine. We can live the lower levels of humanity and be controlled by the negative emotions of life or we can live at the higher levels of the spirit and discover unlimited and supernatural power to do the miraculous – your choice???