Getting Out of the Thoughts Trap

“Thoughts” what does this word even mean? It is defined by the Oxford dictionary as an idea or opinion produced by thinking, or occurring suddenly in the mind. What if they are opposing, comparing, malicious and depressive opinions being produced in your mind as you think? What about that sudden idea that hits and tells you that you are not good enough? How about that idea that comes along of who someone is and you do not even know the person? You just made one glance and BAM you already know who they truly are. The idea that others are out to get you, ever just suddenly hit? Or continuously taunts you? What about the opinions of others that probably confirmed a bad idea that you already thought of yourself? You ever feel as if you are stuck in a pattern of thoughts that don’t mean you any well? Are you producing opinions of yourself that brings you down? Furthermore, are you accepting others opinions of you that is only there to harm your soul? Are you agreeing with the wicked whispering tongue of the “father of lies, satan”? Are you allowing the enemy’s false truth about who you are to enter your heart and settle in victory? Wait; let us not only look at the negative thoughts. What about the good ones that others are saying about you? The thoughts that make you see yourself above your peers? The thoughts that make you esteem yourself way above how you should? Have you been in a pattern of thoughts that constantly want you to seek approval and agreement from others? Are you having confident thoughts just because of that uplifting thing someone said about you, that brought down someone else to bring you up? Something like, “They said do it better than so I can, I definitely can!” If so, then it is now time to find an escape from the trap of your thoughts! Snake venom is that which heals one from a snake poison. Likewise, the same thing that got you there is what will get you out of there and that is your thoughts. It is now time to battle your wrong thoughts with the right thoughts. It is now time to change your pattern of thinking through the word of God. You might be thinking what is so important about my thoughts? Aren’t they just ideas, they don’t really mean anything? I’m here to tell you that is not true, because your thoughts determine who you are and who you are determines the things you say or do. Here is a faithful saying; what you see, feel or hear will become a part of your thoughts. Your thoughts influences what you believe and as I mentioned in one of my previous blogs “Believing is to Be living”, what you believe influences how you live.

Let us now thoroughly examine the “thought trap”.

By my definition thought trap is the situation where one is being deceived by bad thoughts and not realizing how much it is influencing their expectations, beliefs, other thoughts and even their actions. Bad thoughts, what are they you may ask? These are any idea, images, or any other form of thought that comes in our mind and goes against the word of God. It starts with something you experience; commonly through what you see. You remember the childhood chorus we sing during devotion time at school, “Watch your eyes, watch your eyes what they see, watch your eyes watch your eyes what they see…for there is a father up above looking down in tender love Watch your eyes, watch your eyes what they see…” Additionally, Matthew 6:22-24 says, 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! So let us take this into consideration and meditate on it what are we bringing into our beings through our eyes. What are we bringing into our thoughts through our eyes? Please, consider to stop looking at the things that your eyes should not be seeing, I don’t need to list them you know exactly what I am talking about.

Furthermore, it is commonly said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, but we cannot put actual grills on our windows (eyes) like how we protect our homes here in Jamaica. However, there are defense mechanisms which we can apply when dealing with bad thoughts and that is to first recognize the God with us, then make an alert once the bad thought enters and recognize it is trespassing and finally destroy it through the word of God.

Revere the presence of God and rely on it.

Let us first recognize that God is with us. Earlier I mentioned a song that goes “there is a father up above looking down in tender love.” but can I bring reality to you. God love moved from being only up in heaven looking down at us, God’s love was manifested through the act of him sending his only son to earth to die as a sacrifice for our sins so that we can have eternal relationship and life with him. Jesus came, died and resurrected so that we can live and live in abundance he did not come to condemn as what we deserve but he came to love on us! He sent us help and that is the Holy Spirit that lives within every believer. If you believe this then you should already know there is God within you, experiencing everything that you are going through and doing. The bible says that our bodies are the temple in which God spirit lives. Let us think about a temple for a moment, it is not just a shack, an abandoned building, but it is a sanctified place where all different acts of holiness take place. Therefore it is not only highlighting that our bodies is the place in which the Holy Spirit of Jesus lives but it also conveys the fact that our body is a holy and set apart thing. Therefore, when a thought comes in your mind please remember that God is there too seeing all the things you are seeing so before anything else let me first say please have reverence for God in your thoughts for he is there also acknowledge that you are the embodiment of holiness and purity. Let us now look at when we were younger how we behave around our friends would be different the moment our parents enter in the room with us. Because we have love, respect and honour for them and we know that how we are behaving may not be acceptable in their sight. Therefore once mom and/or dad approach everything changes instantly. Let us apply this principle but in a different manner, let us acknowledge God at all times for he is here at all times. In the Old Testament it speaks about how the spirit of God will come for a specific time on God chosen people and then goes away once the work is done but now in today’s time the Holy Spirit will not leave us. Once we accepted him in our lives he is here and here to stay, no leaving no forsaking. He is with us… PERIODT!!! We should not only revere his presence but also rely on it. God is the one who holds the whole world in his hands, he creates everything on the earth mountains, creatures that fly and those that crawl, everything that exist he creates. So just think about it that very same God has a spirit and it lives in us; the Holy Spirit. All over the bible it speaks about God being with us and all of them highlight the fact that he is mighty and with his power we can overcome anything, from David conquering Goliath, Joshua leading the people, Jeremiah talking to the people, Jesus rising from the dead, Peter raising the dead and many more. Here are a few verses that encourage us to rely on God’s presence and highlights how powerful being in his presence really is:

1. Philipians 4:13- For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

2. Joshua 1:9- Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

3. James 4:7-8- Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

So when the bad thoughts do come, remember the presence of God that is there with you and respect that enough not to entertain the thoughts but cancel it as a form of respect to God. Additionally, some thoughts may seem as if it will overcome you but pray to him so that he can give you the power and strength to be released from it and also pray that he brings to your memory the word to chop down this bad thought.

Capture and identify these thoughts

Now that you know God is with you and you have acknowledged his presence that means you must know what his presence is like and what is acceptable and unacceptable to him. Therefore in this second point I will be speaking about alerting your mind when a thought has entered that is not supposed to be there. When a thought escapes into your brain please examine it and do not allow it to float around without recognizing it for what it is. Thoughts may wiggle itself into your mind and disguise itself as the truth but I say to you, call it out for what it is. Ring the alarm!!!! Recognize and react accordingly and promptly. Thoughts may also come and even be the very word of God. Firstly, let us talk about the thoughts that are clearly not of God easy to recognize and not twisted to seem true but it is straight up wrong. Those thoughts are dressed as things which are accepted to the world but not to the word. Thoughts like “I can drink all I want”, “I’m only human it is ok if I do this, its natural everybody does”, “I am better than them because I don’t do this sin”. When thoughts like these come please capture it and put it in a box with a tape titled “Thoughts not of God” and close that box. “Why do we separate these thoughts and have them in a box to itself in our minds?” the question is posed. The bible says in 2 Corinthians 10:5 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. So the question is answered in this verse, we box up these thoughts so we can correct and transform them into the truth. We put them there not to stay hidden but for correction. Bear in mind though, this is not a little later matter it is a right now situation so once it is boxed the next step should start and that is the correction process. The correction process can be placed on thoughts that are true but incorrectly used. For example we can look at when Jesus was in the wilderness the devil tried to tempt him with the truth but he used it out of context think about the scriptures that tries to come in your thoughts out of context. Look at the verse that says nothing can separate us from the love of God anyone might see that and think since nothing can stop God’s love for them they can do anything they want and get away with it but that would be scripture used out of context because the bible did say in another verse that although we are free to do anything it is not everything that is constructive and there is also a verse that conveys that we should not abuse God’s grace for us. Furthermore, thoughts like God loves me and he will forgive me sure since he is a forgiving father he will be ok if I practice sexual immorality or if I am manipulative I am still making it to heaven anyways. Nope! Paul said it plainly in 1 Corinthians 6:9 that those who do wrong will not inherit the kingdom of God. He then went on to list some sexual immoralities and other sins. Therefore, it should not be an acceptable thought when it comes instead you should first recognize it. How to recognize these thoughts you may be wondering? Here are some effective ways to:

1. They are usually evident. You may clearly realize that they are not of God just by the nature of it (sinful).

2. They are usually the twisted truth. They might not be easiest to recognize and will require a little more effort to identify it.

3. Once you recognize the presence of these bad thoughts then make an alert by recognizing what they are and that is simply “bad thoughts”, by doing this you are actually capturing it.

Correct bad thoughts

Finally, now that you have understood how to revere God’s presence and rely on him plus recognize and capture a bad thought you should now learn on how to correct these bad thoughts when they do come. I must say first of all that we do not do anything in our own strength or capabilities it is God who is working in us to do his will. As Philippians 2:13 says, For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. So before you go any further realize that the Holy Spirit within you is actively helping you to do what you ought to do. Let us now dive into the correction process. In the correction process we make any thought that comes against God come into obedience of God. We should not ignore it but instead go into the face of it and bring it into alignment of God’s word. A practical example is when the thought comes to be fearful about something, cancel it by saying to it God did not give me a spirit of fear but of love, power and a sound mind then pray to God and ask him to enable you to do whatever it is in his own time. If the thought comes then our response is to attack it by the means of correction through the word of God. Don’t be dismayed and trust that you can because the great God says you can. You are more than a conqueror may be small alone but XXXXXL with him! Have faith and apply these principles to attack bad thoughts. Since bad thoughts can be the twisted truth attacking it may even require you to change it completely and not only correcting specifics of it. Let me switch from the term attack but rather defense, as these thoughts do not enter as innocent trespassers but their mere presence is an attack. Although the focus here is the internal environment, there are external factors which may influence our thoughts and while there are many negative factors such as movies that are immoral there are even more positive ones but it is up to you to tap into it. The spirit God gives us is of a sound mind as mentioned earlier and he will not only put thoughts in our mind to confirm that but you too have to put the right thoughts in your head as well. This can be achieved through reading the word of God and renewing your mind and engaging with Christian community that sharpens you as you do them through the very same bible. Plus in the external environment God will do works, wonders and miracles to reveal his truth. Like a rainbow after the rain or the peace after the prayer. God does not tell lie, his word is the truth and anything that comes against it is a lie so you can take him at his word ignore the enemy and have faith that God is who he say he is and will fulfill all his promises to us.

By now you must realize that when the bible speaks about the “heart” it recognizes it as the place where the thoughts process takes place. In other verses it speaks about the process of thinking be done in our “heart” for example “as a man thinks in his heart…” So let us take a pause away from all that we have learnt from Science class a bit so we can properly understand the verse that speaks to guarding our hearts. Here is a summary of the ways in which we can guard our hearts. Firstly, acknowledge God’s presence and revere and rely on him. Secondly, decipher your thoughts and recognize those which are bad thoughts and call it out for what it is. Then last but not least, correct/change it through the truth of the word of God and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. You should know this popular quote and it speaks a lot of truth take a deep look into it, “Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviour. Keep your behaviour positive because your behaviour becomes your values. Finally, keep your values positive because your value becomes your destiny.