THOUGHTS IN CRISIS

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

The Mind Set on the Flesh

The mind is a restless wanderer, continually seeking to occupy itself with thoughts. Often when we suffer, our minds become obsessed with our troubles, rehearsing them over and over until they loom so large that we can see nothing else.

Chronic pain, whether physical or emotional, has the capacity to wear down our mental resolve and to take our minds hostage. Thought processes can easily become caught in harmful repetitious patterns, sometimes before we even recognize what has happened. And once we allow our uncensored thoughts to interpret who God is, rather than filtering our thoughts through the light of God’s word, then we become vulnerable to the darts of fear and discouragement. In time, these hurtful emotions will drive us away from the One we need the most—our Heavenly Father.

In his book entitled Far From Home, Joseph Stowell, former president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, talks about the deceitful spins that Satan attempts to put on our thinking patterns. Here are a few:

• God cannot or will not fix this;
• God likes others better than He likes me;
• God hasn’t rewarded me for my sacrifices;
• God’s ways are too hard and strict.

Now I’d like to add a few of my own:

• God doesn’t love me any more;
• I’m not worthy of God’s love;
• I’ve lost my salvation;
• I’ve committed the unpardonable sin.

In your suffering, have any of these thoughts ever crossed your mind? If so, I can guarantee you are not alone! Satan’s very first move in the Garden of Eden was to twist Eve’s thoughts about God, and nothing is new under the sun. The enemy still uses the same strategies today.

The Mind Set on the Spirit

2 Corinthians reminds us that when our faith is in crisis, that crisis takes place in the battlefield of the mind. Here, in our thoughts processes, is where we will either win or lose the fight. At times we need to disengage ourselves from our emotions, and with an act of our will to think about WHAT we are thinking about. In this way we will be able to expose the lies. As we read God’s word and become more familiar with the truth, we will become better armed to resist the attacks of the enemy.

Has suffering stolen your peace? Perhaps its time to take inventory of your thought life: “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6). If you are feeling the weight of “death” in your heart, it may be that your mind is filled with dark (carnal) thoughts. Only God’s word has the power to break the chains.

Suggestion: At one point in my crisis my mind had become so entrenched in fear that I was unable to pray myself out of it. So I wrote the words of Joshua 1:7-9 on an index card and placed it beside my bed. Every night before going to sleep, I read that verse aloud, and every morning, the moment my eyes opened, I did the same. Before long, that verse reached deep into my unconscious and began running through my dreams. Eventually, the power of God’s word set me free from the tyranny of fear.