How to replace the lies in your head
Republished from Giving Grace, February 16, 2023.
Do you know how powerful your mind is?
Did you know that 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% of our thoughts are repetitive, according to the National Science Foundation.
I think we can all say we have fallen down the rabbit hole of intrusive thoughts and overthink till we have thought of every situation possible. Maybe you don’t relate to exactly that, but every human has negative thoughts, and we tend to believe those hypothetical ideas.
The psychological term for intrusive thoughts is unwanted thoughts that cause emotional distress and discomfort. I find myself creating those hypothetical situations and coming to an agreement with them before anything has happened. My mother calls this self-sabotage.
It starts with an unwanted thought; next is what you do with it. You can either come into agreement with it or you can take that thought captive and give it to God. Man, doesn’t that sound so easy?
Truthfully, it’s quite easy to let our thoughts run wild. But God has allowed that free space for our brain because he wants us to learn how to fight temptation and call upon his name. I believe he has given us the power to do so and teaches us through these negative thoughts how to focus on the truth.
Temptation is outside of our control, but we can control how we respond to it. Thoughts are similar because we have the choice to focus on that thought or let it go in one ear and out the other.
James 4:7:“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Basically, God is saying ignore the devil. We have all the authority from Heaven to silence the enemy and believe in truth.
Something I do when I have hypotheticals, lies and negativity running rapid in my head is writing down the lies and replacing them with truth. One of the lies that’s whispered in my ear often is, “You cannot fulfill the call on your life.” Woof, thats a big one, and it is completely contradictory to what God says. So, I read or write down 1 Peter 2:9-10.
“9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Another lie I struggle with is, “People do not really love me.” To combat this lie, I look in the mirror and say, “I am loved and have been given people who love me well.” Or I write down “I am loved” 20 times. Or you can turn on worship music and praise. Fighting against that lie is hard but is necessary.
Music always changes my mood; this is a playlist of songs that helps me praise when I don’t feel like it!
