Some of you are going to be mad at me when you read this. I know it. I know this because I would have been mad at someone who told me this a few months ago, and because that’s just the nature of truth. It stings a little, even when it’s completely good for us. You might think that in writing this, I am belittling your struggles and making them out to be no more than just a simple little molehill. I promise you, I am not. I understand how deep this runs for you. I’ve been there.

I was getting ready to go somewhere the other day when a sudden thought popped into my mind. “Don’t go,” said the thought. It wasn’t audible, to be sure. I wasn’t hearing voices. It was just a thought. “Don’t go.” This thought came again and again, until it really started to worry me. Was there a reason I was thinking this? Would something bad happen if I went? Was God telling me not to go to protect me from something harmful?

Side note: This is not the first time I have had a thought like this, nor is this the worst I’ve ever experienced. I have had these thoughts and obsessions for years now, and I used to be so crippled by them.

I was almost crippled by this particular thought as well, until I realized what was happening. I reasoned with myself that, for one thing, God would not speak to me and leave me to wonder if it was really His voice. He is not a God of confusion. So I could rule that conclusion out immediately. I recognized that this thought was causing me anxiety and fear, and I was obsessing over it. Another characteristic of God is that He is a God of peace. He gives us the Spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. He is not going to cause me to obsess over all the possible things that could go wrong so that I live my life caving to fear of the unknown.

So to make a long story short, I went to do the thing I was going to do. And spoiler alert: nothing bad happened. Imagine that.

I got home and I thought on this some more. I began to wonder, what if I had caved to that nonsensical thought and not gone? What if I had given those thoughts the power over me for years, until I was just a shell full of constant anxiety? What if I really began to believe that it was God’s voice speaking to me, telling me I should always live in fear? You can see how this can become dangerous.

Some of the worst acts in history were committed because people chose to believe the ideas driven by fear. If you need just one example, remember how Hitler convinced an entire country that it was okay to hate Jews because they were to be feared.

Take your thoughts captive.

You tell your thoughts what to do, not the other way around.

If a thought is causing you to fear, become anxious, or avoid normal daily activities, then you can tell that thought to take a hike.

If you believe in God, learn to recognize His voice. Know that he does not cause confusion, chaos, or anxiety. He gives us the Spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. If your thought doesn’t fit that mold, then it can go. It’s not from Him.

Guard your mind. Don’t fill it with gruesome images from horror films or spend all your time reading about the bad things that happen in the world. You can be aware without filling your mind with the negativity. You can’t change a single thing by worrying anyway.

Above all, decide you’re going to believe the truth over the lies and negative emotions. You may not think it’s possible, but I promise you that it is. As soon as an untrue or irrational thought enters your mind, you have the ability to either believe it or ignore it. Choose to ignore it.

And if you make a habit of immediately taking your thoughts captive and guarding your mind, I can guarantee that you’ll begin to find more peace in your life. You won’t panic nearly as often, and you’ll begin to experience what it’s like to have a mind truly freed from the grips of your anxieties.

Quite simply, I'm here writing this blog for you. You are the one who feels stuck in your own mind, trapped by your thoughts and feeling void of the hope of a life that looks any different. Believe me in this: you are not alone, and your hope is not gone. This blog is for the person who is at the end of their rope, grasping for freedom from the life filled with anxiety, depression, and fear. If you can resonate with these things on any level, allow me to offer a fresh breath of life with the words I share here. The words you find here are words which have been well lived out in my own life. I will not pretend that things are sweeter than they are or attempt to give you a quick fix with a few cliche lines. Some of these posts will end on a cliff's edge, not having the satisfaction of a fine and tidied up conclusion. Why? Because not every day ends with us knowing all the answers, but we must trust in a bigger picture nonetheless. When you read these posts, keep this in mind: The biggest theme of this blog is belief. Our healing fully depends on what we believe about our situations, and that belief is completely up to us to choose. Even in the messiness of unanswered questions and the occasional inconclusive blog post, I am challenging you to decide what you will believe. And it is my deepest hope that your belief will be in the freedom that is surely already there, waiting for you to accept.

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