by Lucy | May 27, 2021 | biblical counseling, thoughts |
All of us talk nonstop in our heads, but few of us think well. Our nonstop thoughts are typically negative or downright nasty.
- “You’re so stupid.”
- “I just cannot take one more sleepless night.”
- “Things are never going to change. I’m stuck.”
- “No one loves me.”
Thoughts are powerful, aren’t they? What we think directly affects our emotions and actions. Consider this Scripture on thought-power: “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7, NLT).
It is wise, then, that we become aware of what we think, and root out the lies we believe and replace them with the truth that sets us free. When we think well, our emotions and actions will line up with God’s Word, and we will become increasingly free of anxiety, worry, anger, despair, and enslavement to everything from pizza and Chardonnay to social media and erotica.
What we believe on, we will inevitably act on.
What is “thinking well”?
To think well you need to continually believe God’s truth. “Continual,” a present participle in the Greek, basically means, now that you believe Christ for your salvation, keep on continually believing Him all day, every day. “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Col. 2:6, ESV).
When you continually believe God, you are thinking well, and your emotions and actions fall in line.
Continual belief is a faith walk. It’s not easy. Consider folks in the Bible who harbored the sin of unbelief; that is, rejecting what God says is true. Among them:
Abraham. He lied. He passed Sarah off as his sister to protect himself against Egypt’s pharaoh. Moses. He murdered. David. He bedded another man’s wife. Yes, adultery. Naomi. She pity-partied. And Eve. She and her husband ate the forbidden fruit and. You know the rest of the story.
CHALLENGE: Imagine how your emotions would soar if you continually believed God and grasped how to think well. Do you want a huge drop in fear or anger or depression or addiction?
But how do you “think well”?
To think well is to choose thoughts that agree with God’s truth and that result with in action steps. Here are the four parts:
- Clue in to your current emotions.
- Watch what actions follow these emotions.
- Begin to identify the lies you believe.
- Replace the lies with God’s truth.
And, lastly, take a specific action step that aligns your life with the God’s truth. As we overcome the toxic, ungodly thinking that distort our emotions, we’ll discover the contentment in Christ. Who doesn’t desire that?!
If you would like a FREE Think Well chart to help you get stop negative thinking, send me a contact message and mention the chart.
Question: What is one thing that you will do to think well?
by Lucy | Jan 7, 2020 | biblical counseling, emotions, thoughts
How should we destroy strongholds?
by Lucy | Nov 25, 2019 | biblical counseling, emotions, thoughts |
You need to repent of idols of the heart. Idols of the heart are ruling desires of your heart. Begin by identifying the heart with these two questions:
1. Is your desire, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42, NIV)?
2. Or does your cry sound more like demands for security, approval, comfort, and love?
When you want security, approval, comfort, and love, and get want you demand, pride will fill you. Underneath the veneer of pride and self-righteousness are emotions like anxiety, anger, and discouragement and actions like seething, shouting, nail-biting, insomnia, overeating, and self-loathing.
Just as the prodigal son demanded his way, just as the older son self-righteously sneered at his brother when he returned home, chances are you too have ruling desires of the heart that are unholy.
Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you negative thoughts, critical speech, gossip, bitterness, immorality, and anything else that exposes a self-ruled heart.
You may want to jot down what the Holy Spirit reveals to you. What are the “rotten fruit” that expose the ruling desires of your heart?
Faithfully yours,
Lucy
by Lucy | Nov 7, 2019 | biblical counseling, emotions, thoughts
Jennifer asked me how to change her thoughts. She had spiraled deep into discouragement and wanted to feel like her old self: upbeat, positive, happy. “This isn’t me,” she shared. “I keep thinking negatively about everything over and over and over. I don’t know how to stop.”
In this article, you learn three new ways to think about your thoughts and learn how to stop life-sapping thinking:
- Ask yourself if your thoughts glorify God.
- Change the thoughts he wants you to change
- Take every thought captive.
1. Ask Yourself an Important Question
What you say to yourself matters. What you think becomes who you are. You want to think well, don’t you? Then you need to ask if your thoughts glorify God.
Words kill, words give life;
they’re either poison or fruit–
you choose. Prov. 18:21
A helpful place to begin is writing down your thoughts in a small, spiral notebook that’s easy to carry with you. When a negative thought pops up, write it down and note what was happening around the time of the thought. Do this for about three days. Don’t concern yourself with changing your thoughts at first. The point is to become aware of them.
You may become aware of thoughts you didn’t even know you were thinking!
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Do you say one of these uglies to yourself?
Very often women silently tell themselves things like:
- I’m such an idiot.
- No one likes me.
- I’m ugly.
- I can’t do anything right.
Did you have any of these thoughts?
Practical help: Review your list of thoughts. Which are the most common ones? When did you tend to have them? Are they glorifying to God? Jennifer had most of her automatic, negative thoughts in the morning before she got out of bed and asked God to show them to her. She wrote out Psalm 139:1-2:
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Psalm 139:23-24
Like Jennifer, you can ask yourself whether your thoughts are glorifying to God.
2. Change Your Thoughts
Which thoughts is God nudging you to change? Not sure? You could measure your thoughts by the instruction of Philippians 4:8.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Jennifer noted that one of her recurring thoughts was, “I’m never going to get better.” This thought is in opposition to “whatever is true.” As a Christian, Jennifer is promised by God to become more and more like Jesus Christ, who says “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10b). This process is called “progressive sanctification.”
When she told herself this life-killing lie, her discouragement worsened. Has this happened to you too? Sadly, negative thinking begets negative emotions. Conversely, says Brian S. Borgman in Feelings and Faith, “Right thinking about God produces and cultivates godly emotions such as peace, joy confidence, and hope.”
You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3)
Practical step: Measure your thoughts against Phil. 4:8 and ask God which one you need to change.
3. Take Every Thought Captive
God wants you to walk in the truth. You Enemy has a game plan to get you to believe lies
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— lies about yourself, about your circumstances, and about the Gospel.
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)
To take every thought captive to obey Christ, you need to replace the lies with the truth. Go through the list of thoughts you wrote down. For each one that is not true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, or commendable, find a Bible verse that replaces the lie with the truth. Jot down the Bible verses you’ve found on index cards or sticky notes.
Yes, it is work to find life-giving Bible verses and write them on card or notes but well worth it. Do you think that looking up verses isn’t worth the effort? Do you have other obstacles? What are they? Why not discuss them with a trusted Christian friend?
2 examples to get you get you started.
Life-sapping thought: God doesn’t love me. He doesn’t care.
Life-giving truth: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6-8
Life-sapping thought: Life must go well for me. If it doesn’t, this proves I’m a worthless loser.
Life-giving truth: “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:11-13.
Practical help: Each time your have a negative, life-sapping thought, read the index card or sticky note you made with the life-giving truth. As you repeat this process of taking every thought captive to obey Christ, you will discover that the negative thoughts diminish in frequency and power.
This was Jennifer’s discovery. As she read John 10:10 each time she thought “I’m never going to get better,” she noticed that she thought it less often and she experienced hope and joy. She’s applying the same process to other life-sapping thoughts she has. Her discouragement if lifting. She’s beginning to feel like her old self.
And it all began with thinking about her thoughts. Do you want to replace your negative thoughts too? May I invite you to contact me? We can set up a time to talk on the phone for a free 15-minute consult. I also have a downloadable ebook you make like — “Transform Your Thoughts Journal.”
by Lucy | Jul 3, 2019 | emotions, identity in Christ, People Who Hurt, thoughts
My funk came out of nowhere and I forgot to thank God. Not for the funk. That would be insane, right? But in the craziness of normal life.
Example 1: I sent my water bill payment to the electricity company, and the water company threatened to turn off my H2O.
Example 2: My cat tossed his cookies. And she boot-scooted, drawing criss-cross lines on the carpet. I’ll spare you a visual.
Example 3: Okay, this next one isn’t crazy but super stressful.
My college-age son, who lives 1,200 miles away, had to find a new place to stay fast. So I worried, and when I worry, I wake up a million times during the night, covers off, covers on, covers off. Not only that, my back tightens and my feet go all numb-y. Then I dwell on The Injury. And I fear a repeat.
Don’t Do What I Did
In the middle of my funk I focused on me. I failed to think about the all-powerful God who has my back. And I forgot to thank God.
But thanking God is his will!
Many times when I counsel hurting women they ask about God’s will for their lives, and we have rich conversations. I listen to their life story in the light of God’s redemptive plan for them. And it becomes clearer — God’s will.
Annie’s husband just lost his job. And she’s concerned but hopeful. Her husband’s a good guy, a harder worker, an amazing dad to their three kiddos. But now they don’t have health insurance. And the youngest needs physical therapy. And so she worried.
We opened to this snippet of Scripture:
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 2 Thessalonians 5:18
There it is. Thank God.
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Instead, Thank God
Often I give a “thank God” assignment to counselees. For 20 minutes, they list everything going on in life: the vacation to Hawaii, a costly car repair, a kid’s high school graduation, a husband’s lost job, and so on. You’ll note “good” and “bad” stuff on the list.
Then we give thanks.
Lucy, are you nuts? How could anyone possibly thank God for the bad stuff, right?
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But God says give thanks in all circumstances. In is not for. Really, who thanks God for cat barf and boot scoots? As we thank God in all circumstances, we recognize he’s is in control and knows exactly what we face. He is with us, in us. Thanking God becomes worship.
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When Annie made her list and thanked God in her circumstances, her focus shifted from self to God and her worry disappeared.
My 7 Things (plus one)
Now let’s give it a go. List everything happening in life. I’ll share the first 7 that come to mind.
- The pistachios I ate for lunch.
- My messy desk.
- Birds tweeting.
- My daughter’s MS (yes, that).
- Books!!!
- Wednesday nights studying Revelation with 20 others.
- Friends all over America but none near me in my new town.
- BONUS: My husband — I really don’t deserve him.
As expected, when I wrote my list, my spirit lifted. Remembering God for the little things, even the hard things, helped put my circumstances in perspective, and thank him. I entered into worship.
May I encourage you to set your timer to 20 minutes and list everything going on in your life? You’ll probably get stuck 5 minutes in. This is normal. Don’t give up. Keep going. Then thank God in all circumstances.
Let me know how it goes.
by Lucy | Feb 11, 2019 | biblical counseling, thoughts |
The new “Transform Your Thoughts e-Journal” is a simple, effective, and biblical way of journaling your thoughts. As you change your thoughts, you’ll also change your heart and even experience a tranquil life. Get the downloadable here.
In this article, I’ll introduce you to part of the thought journal I developed for my counselees.
Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Romans 12:2a, NLT
Wonderfully, the Transform Your Thoughts e-Journal shows you how to replace life-sapping thoughts with uplifting, God-honoring thoughts. And as the Holy Spirit transforms your thoughts, four things happen. You’ll–:
- Become aware of life-sapping, ungodly thoughts.
- See a connection among your thoughts, emotions, and actions.
- Exchange uplifting, God-honoring thoughts for ungodly thoughts.
- Have better emotions and actions.
Your Thoughts Reveal Your Heart
Know these two truths:
- Your thoughts flow from your heart, which is the seat of your deepest desires.
- A healthy heart is Christ-centered; an unhealthy heart is me-centered.
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7, NKJV
Indeed, your thoughts become part of your beliefs. And your beliefs remain until new thoughts challenge them. Then new beliefs elbow out the old ones. Thought transformation is NOT behavior modification; it is renewal of your core BELIEF system.
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How to Use the Journal
First, describe a difficult circumstance. Then ask, what was going on? Here is an example.
“My husband and I have argued a lot ever since our teen began using marijuana.”
Next, write your thoughts, emotions, and resulting actions. You may think your emotions come first. Actually, thoughts do. Then emotions and actions follow thoughts.
Your journal might look like this:
| LIFE-SAPPING THOUGHTS |
EMOTIONS |
ACTIONS |
| “I’m a horrible mother.” |
Anger, fear, sadness |
Yelled at teen. Took away her phone. Cried. |
Now select a real circumstance from your own life and try it yourself. You’ll benefit the most when you actually do the work of thought journaling. Reading about it isn’t enough. Rather, you need to do it.
Turn Your Thoughts Around
Let’s start with the “I’m a horrible mother” thought. First, begin with a question: Ask if your thought is true. Is it a fact that you are a horrible mother?
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Chances are, you are a loving, stressed-out mom who feels scared, angry, and overwhelmed, searching for solutions to help your teen.
Now replace the life-sapping lie “I’m a horrible mother” with an uplifting biblical truth such as, “Even though my daughter’s choice to do drugs upsets me, God promises that he is with me, guides me, and comforts me. He is trustworthy.”
Begin your new thought with something like, “Even though _________________,
God promises __________________________________________.
New emotions and actions replace your old emotions and actions.
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Here’s what it looks like:
| NEW THOUGHTS |
NEW EMOTIONS |
NEW ACTIONS |
| Even though my teen has made poor choices, God promises to give us wisdom when we ask for it and to be with my family and me. |
Peace, hope |
With your spouse, pray and ask God for wisdom.
Thank God.
Smile |
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Transforming your thoughts is absolutely necessary to live the Christian life!
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If you’d like one-to-one help with transforming your thoughts and experiencing a tranquil life, consider setting up a complimentary phone consultation with me to talk about receiving biblical counseling by Skype or FaceTime or Zoom.
Counseling hearts to hope,
