The Problem of the Wayward Mind

Do you have challenging thoughts that seem to have a life of their own and that persist even when you try to push them away? How can we get victory over a wayward mind?

Recently a man told me that he had tried everything he could to block bad thoughts from his mind but without success and he despaired about ever winning this battle.

God’s perfect creation plan was that our human spirit would be the source and director of our life and that the soul, including the rational mind, would be subservient to our human spirit’s leading. However, since the Fall, carnal man has been using his mind to decide what he thinks is best for him; what is his own ‘good and evil’ (Genesis 2:17 and Genesis 3). When fallen man lost the connection of his human spirit to God, he increasingly lived out of his soul strength, and his mind, will and emotions became overly powerful.

In the western world particularly we have elevated the mind, especially rational thinking and intelligence, and have furthered the erroneous idea that the mind is our life source and should therefore have ultimate control. But this has effectively exposed our mind to the enemy’s control and his desire is to keep our mind in confusion, despair, unbelief or turmoil.

What was happening to this man was that he was trying to fight this spiritual battle with his own mind strength. So together we looked at those verses from 2 Corinthians 10:1-4 and I asked him to especially read the earlier part of verse 4. ‘The weapons we use in our fight are not the world`s weapons but God`s powerful weapons, which we use to destroy strongholds’.

He realised that he couldn`t win the battle in his mind because he was using the wrong weapons. He enemy had created a stronghold and he needed a spiritual weapon for that battle. However, Paul is clear that he also had to play a part, to `take his thoughts captive and make them obey Christ`.

We talked about how you do that and realised that at the name of Jesus every knee must bow (Philippians 2:10) so that the name of Jesus would be a ‘mighty spiritual weapon’ against the demonic holding his thoughts into captivity. Repeating that ‘Jesus is Lord’ would also be a statement of obedience to Christ, so the same phrase would be a weapon that would fulfil all the verse commanded him to do. He had to wield the spiritual weapon but the actual power encounter was not his but the Lord’s.

The man began to feel hope rising and went away with a strategy for the next time the oppressing and distressing thoughts affected him. He wouldn’t try to push them away with his own strength, but was ready to crush down the bad thoughts with the words "Jesus is Lord of my life" and to continue with those words until his mind was cleared and brought under his rightful godly control.

Prayer: Father God, thank You that Jesus has won the battle against the enemy once and for all. Help us to bring our wayward thoughts into submission to Christ Jesus using scriptural truths that will be the power weapon we need. We pray this in Jesus` mighty name. Amen.