Do our thoughts matter that much?
“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 10:5
What does it mean to take every thought captive? What comes to mind when considering how to take something captive? Maintaining a sense of power and control? Holding something hostage?
Taking our thoughts captive is a lot simpler than we may think, although the process may, at times, seem difficult. How do we truly take our thoughts captive? It’s simple: we make a choice not to dwell on them.
My clients who struggle with intrusive thoughts are always surprised to hear that EVERYONE has intrusive thoughts. We all experience thoughts that are unpleasant and maybe even shocking. But guess what? Thoughts in and of themselves are meaningless. Thoughts are just thoughts. And when we realize that, it becomes much easier to dismiss them, move on with our business, and not let those thoughts impact our feelings, behaviors, and beliefs about ourselves.
With that being said, thoughts CAN carry significant weight and influence over our lives. But how do you know when thoughts begin to shift from meaningless to meaningful? It happens the moment we decide whether we are going to dwell on them or to dismiss them as meaningless and move on. The moment we decide to dwell, the thought now has power over us. If it was a fearful thought, dwelling over the source of the fear is now going to result in a feeling of fear and will probably impact our behavior in some way. If it was an anxious thought, dwelling will probably take us down a rabbit hole of “what ifs”, lead to a feeling of anxiety, and maybe impact our functioning. Dwelling on a negative thought about someone else will probably lead to some sort of feeling of anger, resentment, etc. If you suffer from social anxiety, you likely spend a lot of time dwelling on what other people might think of you or how you come across to others. Of COURSE doing this is going to make you anxious in social situations. Are you noticing a pattern? It’s not just thoughts that affect our feelings and behaviors… it’s the thoughts we choose to dwell on. The thoughts we choose to entertain.
We live in a fallen world and that is all that we need to know regarding why unpleasant thoughts may enter our mind. Spending time analyzing it, wondering what it means, letting it lead to another thought and then another… this is way more time than many of our thoughts deserve. Is there a time and a place for processing trauma and how past events may have impacted your thought life? Yes. Absolutely. But that doesn’t change how we should respond to thoughts in our everyday life.
As Christians, God has given us His Holy Spirit to help us discern which thoughts are worth dwelling on. So we have to check our motivation. How are we picking and choosing which thoughts we entertain? It’s not thoughts that are to blame for our emotional struggles… it is our decision to dwell on and entertain them. Do we think dwelling on worst case scenarios will somehow help us feel prepared and in control, even though it is only leaving us fearful and anxious? Do we think we are justified in our anger and therefore are choosing to dwell on situations in which we were wronged, only escalating our anger? Do we think that some horrible or shocking thought somehow means something important about our morality, and so we dwell on where it may have come from, thereby giving it even more power over us? Do we think that social anxiety is just a part of our identity, and so we dwell on every social interaction, leading to more anxiety, because we think it’s impossible not to?
Taking a thought captive does not imply that we should somehow be able to prevent any and all unpleasant thoughts from entering our mind, or even that we necessarily need to stop and analyze and pick apart thoughts that we don’t like. We actually have very little control over our thoughts. If you were offered one million dollars to not think about a purple elephant, you inevitably would still think about a purple elephant. However, our control and our choice comes in deciding which thoughts we are going to dwell on and entertain.
For some reason, we sometimes seem to think that every thought that enters our mind carries some meaning or requires some action. People with anxiety often describe themselves as “over thinkers”. It is this perception of thoughts that truly gives thoughts power over us. Simply choosing to notice a thought’s presence, decide to dismiss it as not worth our time, and then returning our attention back to what we were doing, is enough to truly take that thought “captive”; it is no longer a thought that is controlling you… you have dismissed it as meaningless.
Our thoughts matter, but it’s not necessarily the thoughts in and of themselves, it is our choice of what to do with our thoughts. The mere presence of a thought does not indicate anything about our character, our salvation, or the state of our mental health. A thought is just a thought unless we give it power, and the only way to give it power is to dwell on it instead of dismissing it and refusing to give it a foothold. Simply dismissing thoughts is easier said than done, which is why, although the answer is simple, the process may be difficult. However, we have our Heavenly Father to turn to help us. When we find it difficult to dismiss a thought and go on with our business, we can give it to the Lord in prayer instead of dwelling on it on our own. The enemy uses the mind to gain a foothold in our lives and he would love for us to believe that we are victims to these thoughts we have no control over, but that is not the case.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” – Philippians 4:8
I find it so meaningful that this scripture follows the infamous scripture regarding anxiety that is so often quoted. Thoughts don’t always have to carry meaning. But what we choose to actively THINK about, the thoughts we choose to give life to, always matter.
