Captive Thoughts

Do you ever talk to yourself? I sure do. I encourage myself (you CAN finish this boot camp!), sometimes I chastise myself (don't say it, Cam, DON'T SAY IT out loud!), I even advise myself (if you want that data to port over correctly, don't map it until you're SURE what you want it look like!). This past week, the term "inner dialogue" developed a whole new meaning.

A couple days ago, I was privileged to attend the TRUE Woman's Conference. One of the keynote speakers was Dr. Caroline Leaf, whose book Switch On Your Brain I read over the summer, and am incorporating into my small group curriculum. At the conference, Dr. Leaf reiterated the importance of setting up a constant internal dialogue with the holy spirit. In doing so, we are being obedient to the scripture "take every thought captive for Christ" in 2 Corinthians 10:5.

As creatures of God, we are designed in His image. Think about that for a moment. In what ways do you think are you like God? When you examine your thoughts, how do they stack up? We are DESIGNED to make good choices in love, power and soundness. We are BUILT for love and relationship. Our inner CRAVING is for unity with God! When we start worshiping materialism, and success by the world's standards, we start worshipping the wrong idol.

Words have power. This includes internal words, and external as well. A friend of mine was just telling me that her son and her mother have not spoken for years over some ill advised words spoken from a grandmother to her grandson. Yes, there is the power of life and death in words, so your internal dialogue is vitally important to your faith.

Dr. Leaf picqued my interest in the words we speak to ourselves. At the conference, part of our experience included having a prayer warrior pray a special blessing over you. This was a one-on-one blessing, not a group thing, so it was very personal. My prayer partner spoke a POWERFUL word over me, that said, in part "Never again will you believe your life has no value."

I realized when she prayed that, in and the hours following as I reflected on it, that I had been focusing on incorrect thoughts that my life has no value. My internal dialogue was errant, and did NOT line up with the truth of scripture. We select what we allow into our mind and what we focus on. It's imperative if we want to have glorious output from our thinking that magnifies Christ's lordship, we need to have an internal dialogue that focuses on the truths of God.

How do you discpline yourself to take every thought captive for Christ? One important exercise is to put God's word in. I've been in His word more recently, and I do see a difference. For me, I write out and memorize key scriptures, and use them as my default thinking (I actually have them on notecards in my purse!). Recently I've been drawing pictures to go with them. Dr. Leaf explained in her book, so I started doing it, that adding color, free form design, and graphics to your thinking helps to wake up parts of the brain that are sleeping. So, even though my friends call me that anti-crafter, I pick up my colored markers and go about the task of expanding my knowledge of scripture.

I visited Passion City Church a while back, as I like to do every few months, and Louie Giglio was starting a series on the book of Philippians. He preached an amazing 45-50 minute message on not the first chapter of Philippians, nor even the first few verses, but on just the first few words!

That experience helped me realize just how rich and multi-dimensional God's word is. When I do a yoga practice, I try to select a verse and meditate on it to help focus my mind. Sometimes I'll pray or journal over a single word - love, grace, forgive, sacrifice, serve.

And so, following the conference, I felt compelled to share my personal journey as I try to train myself to take every thought captive for Christ. Dr. Leaf's book takes you through a five step process that you can do for 6-8 minutes a day that will clear out toxic and negative thinking and help you take every thought captive. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic as well.