A few weeks ago, I invited guest contributor, Nick Hetrick, to share his thoughts from a two-part talk entitled “Taking Your Thoughts Captive,“ which he and Christina “Chris” Risley gave at our annual Xenos Summer Institute. Here’s the second installment from Chris. She teaches our core theology classes and works as a pastoral counselor. She’s a dynamic leader and has developed many women who lead in our church. In this short essay, she tackles the practical aspects of taking your thoughts captive. Specifically, she talks about how doing some journaling helps us process intrusive thoughts that enter our mind.
By Christina Risley
“We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” ‘
2 Corinthians 10:5
Taking thoughts captive’ is one of those terms that can get thrown around in Christian circles – similar to, “You just need to get under grace!” Many people know they should do it but don’t know exactly how to. So we will be taking a look at this from a practical standpoint, including how to journal effectively.
In The Coddling of the American Mind, the authors discuss three key ‘untruths’ perpetuated in our culture today. One “Great Untruth” is “Always trust your feelings.”
Sages in many societies have converged on the insight that feelings are always compelling, but not always reliable. Often they distort reality, deprive us of insight, and needlessly damage our relationships. Happiness, maturity, and even enlightenment require rejecting the Untruth of Emotional Reasoning and learning instead to question our feelings. The feelings themselves are real, and sometimes they alert us to untruths that our conscious mind has not noticed, but sometimes they lead us astray.[i]
God has designed humans in a very complicated way – we have feelings, we have thoughts, and we have minds that can choose to listen to our thoughts/feelings or listen to God’s truth. The point of the paper is how to actually process through your thoughts and feelings – not to ignore them, not to try to control them, and not let them control you. We can use our minds to examine our thoughts and feelings.
This is a nuanced topic because on the one hand, it is not healthy to always be examining ourselves. Many popular Christian authors teach that we will appreciate grace more if we understand our sin better, which is just not in line with what the New Testament teaches. It can also lead to morbid self-focus, as Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones puts it:
The fundamental trouble with [some] people is that they are not always careful to draw the line of demarcation between self-examination and introspection. We all agree that we should examine ourselves, but we also agree that introspection and morbidity are bad…We are meant to examine ourselves periodically, but if we are always doing it, always, as it were, putting our soul on a plate and dissecting it, that is introspection. And if we are always talking to people about ourselves and our problems and troubles, and if we are forever going to them with that kind of frown on our face and saying: I am in great difficulty – it probably means that we are all the time centered upon ourselves.[ii]
There is no point to examining my own soul all the time – I will never get to the end of my sin. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all else. Who can hope to understand it?” Why do I do what I do? Because I’m sinful, in deeper ways than I could ever imagine.
But on the other hand, Crabb and Allender also have an excellent perspective in the book Encouragement:
Though we may not be consciously aware of what we are telling ourselves at every given moment, the words that fill our minds control much of what we do and feel. Much of our behavior is a direct product of what we are thinking unconsciously. Therefore it is important to tune in to our thinking, to hear what we are telling ourselves, and to actively replace sentences that reflect wrong goals and lead to selfish behavior with sentences that reflect right goals and lead to selfless behavior.[iii]
The only caveat I would make to this is that it shouldn’t be something we are trying to accomplish on our own. I think it’s better to think in terms of Psalm 139:23-24 – “Search me O God and know me…See if there is any offensive way in me.”
And we have Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Every person thinks incorrectly; we all have many wrong perspectives on ourselves and others and even God. Much of spiritual growth is learning to think about ourselves, our lives, and other people the way that God thinks.
There’s also the fact that God has an enemy, Satan, who is brilliant and wants to destroy our spiritual lives. So he is constantly sowing thoughts in our minds that are the opposite of what God says. It is vitally important for us to see how dangerous wrong thoughts are. As Dennis McCallum argues in his book Satan and His Kingdom,
Many believers don’t see how dangerous these mental arguments are. We tend to think that even if we mess up and draw the wrong conclusions here or there, we’ll get through, and any damage will be minor and temporary. But this radically underestimates Satan, who doesn’t stop after he wins one small argument. He will relentlessly pursue any opening and seek to expand it into a major breach; complete destruction is his goal. If we find it difficult to avoid deception before losing an argument with Satan, it becomes more difficult once we believe any one of his cases, partially or fully.[iv]
Your spiritual life is determined by how you think. So what do we do? Some have seen the Biblical Change Model.
Two mistakes people make while trying to change:
Jumping from wrong actions to right actions – that’s legalism
Jumping from wrong actions to right beliefs – “I had an angry blowup yesterday, but I know that God’s love is patient and kind.” “I’m feeling anxious – but God is in control.”
God wants you to take your wrong thoughts captive and replace them with his right thoughts. Also notice what this isn’t. It isn’t taking your feelings captive. “I’m sad, I need to not feel sad.” “I’m anxious – trust God instead!”
So – let’s talk practically. “Taking thoughts captive” – picture that scene. Taking people captive is hard, and kind of a violent act. If someone walked up to you on the street and tried to take you captive you would fight like crazy. And our thoughts are really the same way – they will hide from us and try to fight us.
What follows is one approach with simple steps as to how to take your thoughts captive. Different people have different approaches, so this is a rough guide, or maybe a starting point for you. And this approach is to journal. Many people claim they just ‘think it out.’ There are a few people capable of doing this. But most of us need to see the words written or typed out – seeing it in black and white forces us to see it for what it is.
This does not necessarily need to happen every day. Regular time in God’s word will gently correct our wrong thinking without us noticing too much – growing the right things in a garden prevents weeds from taking root. But occasionally something will happen. I will engage in some behavior or experience an emotion that lets me know something is wrong: anger, sadness, frustration, loneliness, etc. Or there will be a behavior God calls to my attention: being short-tempered with my husband or kids, feeling tired beyond what can be explained physically, overeating, or buying something I don’t need.
Psalm 42
Using Psalm 42 as a guide, let’s look at the steps the psalmist takes as he experiences a strong emotion. David says, “Why are you downcast, oh my soul? Why are you so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42:5).
Step One: “Why are you downcast, oh my soul?” Instead of trying to stop the feelings, use the feelings to figure out what your beliefs are.
You’re trying to go to God first, being as honest as possible with Him about what you’re feeling. But you’re also questioning your feelings instead of trusting them. If you have a hard time even identifying your feelings, it can be helpful to use a “Feelings Wheel.” There are emotions displayed beyond “I feel good/bad” that some of us get stuck on.
And through questioning, you are inviting God to be part of the process. I mentioned Psalm 139 already – “Search me and know me.” But look at what verse 1 says in that psalm: “You have searched me, O God, and you know me.” Part of the reason it’s not dumping on God is because he already knows anyway – he knows better than you do what you’re thinking and feeling. That’s also why you can be completely honest with him. Ex: “God, I am so angry at her, I really hate her sometimes.” And he’s like, “Yeah. Knew that before I even created you.”
We spend a lot of time trying not to think or feel certain things. This psalmist is just honest about what he’s thinking and feeling, but in a critical way. He’s also not too hard on himself – it’s not, “Why are you sad, you loser?”
It might have to start at an even more basic level: “Is there anything I feel upset about? Anything I feel sad about?”
Step Two: “Put your hope in God.” Do you believe that only God and His truth will satisfy you?
What truths answer the lies in your head? Make sure they are the right truths. For example, I’ve heard people say, “I know that God wants me to make disciples of Christ,” or, “I know that my family will come to Christ,” or, “I will get married one day.” But God never promises those specific things. What He does promise is that His plans for us are good, that He has good things in store for us, that He wants to use us.
This also means you’re not putting hope in yourself: “When you wrestle with accusations, begin by affirming the truth about your own guilt. Don’t make the mistake of trying to justify or minimize your own shortcomings.” [v]
Also, consider, is part of what you’re thinking actually accusation from Satan? Have you ever heard, “You really messed that up, you’ll never do anything right.” Well, you’re not taking your thoughts captive when you say, “I don’t suck! I can do this!” Nope – that’s a pep talk. Instead, it is far more effective to say, “Not only did I mess that up, but I messed up this thing over here that you forgot about. The thing is, I’m accepted by God because of Christ, not because of me.”
Step Three: “For I will yet praise him.” Focus on truths about God and blessings in your life, including your identity. Then you can thank Him for these things that are already true of you.
Step Four: “My Savior and my God.” I have been rescued from the dominion of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). My father is the King of the Universe. No matter what happens in this situation or the rest of my life, I am spending eternity in heaven.
When you look at David’s psalm, he implementing a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which just happens to be one of the most effective forms of cognitive therapy.
This also doesn’t happen in the same way for everyone. I usually journal on my computer – for me it’s faster and more convenient. But over the past two summers, I have been on camping trips without my computer, so I had a few sessions with a pen and notebook. Those were special times because I had to slow down, which made me more reflective.
And this needs to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. On the one hand, I’m not naturally introspective. On the other hand, I’m just as self-focused as the next person. So I find that journaling kind of goes in waves – I avoid thinking about my feelings and just pray for other people, but then my anxiety builds up because there are things I’m just not thinking about. The Holy Spirit nudges me towards more openness with God, and eventually with others. But then I spend a lot of time thinking about myself and my feelings, and my anxiety builds up because I’m not praying for other people. I’m not transferring the burden of care for others onto God. Anxiety is one of those feelings that should not be clamped down, but seen as a signal that there is something I need to pray about!
I will also say that I think it’s important to get some quiet reflection time. Have you ever noticed how many thoughts or ideas bubble to the surface when you shower? It is in part because you probably don’t have much external noise. So use some times – going for a walk or run, mowing the lawn, other mindless household chores – to just let your mind relax and think about things.
Taking thoughts captive takes practice. Some people can more easily identify their thoughts and feelings; for others of us, we are just as mysterious to ourselves as we are to others. However, we can have confidence in the truth that God knows us better than we know ourselves, and he is the one who will guide us in this process. The end result is a mind being transformed by God’s truth as we learn to appropriate his grace in our new identity.
[i] Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, (New York: Penguin Books, 2018), 34-35.
[ii] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Printing Co, 1965), 17.
[iii] Dr. Larry Crabb and Dr. Dan Allender, Encouragement, The Key to Caring, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 95.
[iv] Dennis McCallum, Satan and His Kingdom: What the Bible Says and How It Matters To You, (Bloomington: Bethany House, 2009), 99.
[v] Dennis McCallum, Satan and His Kingdom: What the Bible Says and How It Matters To You, (Bloomington: Bethany House, 2009), 156.