Take Every Thought Captive

We have a choice.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Today I read a devotional about how thoughts can cause a downward spiral. If you are like me, you don't need this explained. You have lived it. I could write a book on this. It would be easy to start.

At some point, as a young child, I began to think. My thoughts gave way to good things, like writing and poetry and sensitivity. But I also had thoughts that caused me to go down, down, down deep into depression and despair. These were the dominating thoughts that controlled my life, the way I saw myself. Thoughts are things, they say, and they are powerful.

Everything begins and ends with the mind, and the mind, if mastered, can bring tremendous freedom. Mind you (see what I did there), I am not advocating for "the power of positive thinking." There is some validity in this, but I am talking about a deeper, lasting approach.

I am also not talking about the reality of mental illness and clinical depression. I am talking about the Biblical definition of thought control. And I realize when I write "Biblical," I may have lost some of you already. But bear with me. Whether you subscribe to Biblical truth or not, I think we can arrive at common ground.

There's a verse, one of my favorites, that says, "Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ." In other words, focus on things that Jesus did and, in so doing, obey. Most people focus on gaining control of negative thoughts which makes sense. I read today that we have thousands of thoughts in a day and 80% of them are negative. I can attest to this. My mind rarely turns off, and try as I have, I still get recurring negative thoughts, some about myself and some about others.

My thoughts have led me down a dark path of depression and sleepless nights, moodiness and despair. I can trace it back to my childhood. I'm sure some of this was due to my upbringing. I don't remember much encouragement or demonstrative behavior from my parents. While I wish it would have been different, I know they did the best they could with what they had. I don't blame them and I forgive them.

Back then, I didn't have God, although He had me, and I somehow felt that to languish in a gloom and doom state made me deeper, more alive and a better writer. Now I know that, while there may be some truth in this, focusing on negative, doom-scrolling (in my mind, long before social media existed) is not a positive attribute worth cleaving to. Going back to the verse, which states "take every thought captive," it seems a lofty goal, doesn't it? I'm fortunate if I can take even one captive out of thousands.

But what if I tried that? One thought out of the 60,000 we may have in a day? It could be as easy as, "You are lazy, Erin."

I could take that thought and seize it, put it to death, right then and there. Or, "You will never succeed at writing." Again, death to that thought. "You are a bad wife, friend, mom, grandmother, employee." Death. Death. Death.

Whether you believe in God (and I hope you do) or not, He loves you, created you, and made you for a purpose. And He has a plan for you. And me. Everything starts and ends in the mind. Everything. Experiment with this -- try it out. Christian or Atheist, we all could learn to apply this truth.