What You Think

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What You Think

by Aimee Hays

Recently, I ran an anonymous poll on social media asking people to share what they were struggling with, and the overwhelming majority of responses I received were related to thoughts that people were having. Our mind and thoughts are of our spirit, and battles and conflicts are waged there in our mind. As children of God, we must recognize the conflicts that take place in our mind and carefully consider how we will respond when intrusive thoughts cross the battlelines. We must realize that even though we have thoughts, we are not our thoughts. The Bible tells us to think on these things in Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Often, we battle thoughts that begin early in life—we look in the mirror and scrutinize the image looking back, the moment that a loved one walked out and never came back, the phone call that changed everything, or the lie that person told about you that festers. The list of thoughts that conflict our minds can be lengthy. As you know, most conflicts that take place have both winners and losers as recorded in history. The Anglo-Zanzibar War was a military conflict fought between the United Kingdom and the Zanzibar Sultanate on August 27, 1896. The conflict lasted between thirty-eight and forty-five minutes, marking it as the shortest recorded war in history.

Battles have set time frames; however, when the battle never ends and the thoughts become persistent and all-consuming, we become engaged in war even if it is short-lived. The enemy looks for the high ground to set a stronghold in our minds to win the war. Destructive thoughts will be set on our weakest targets. The mental aspect of what we think of ourselves—how we see ourselves, how we think others think about us, thinking about what happened to us—becomes a target. According to 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

What do you think about what happened to you? Has it held you captive or did it become the catalyst to push you beyond enemy territory? Take back what the enemy has stolen. Tear down the conflicting stronghold set up in your mind today. According to Proverbs 23:7, “As someone thinks within himself, so he is.” We are not victims of circumstances. If you have chosen to believe otherwise, this verse sounds like nonsense. But again, science is proving what Scripture already says. Science has shown us that when we think, we build thoughts, and these thoughts become physical substances in our brain. We were created in the image of God, full of love and grace. What might happen if we started believing this?

About The Author

Aimee Hays is a native Roman and member of Redemption Church. Aimee has been married to Tony for 25 years and has raised two sons—Hunter who is now married to Abbey Williams Hays and Landon who is a Sophomore at Southeastern University.

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