What is worry? Worry is when we distrust the promises and power of God. I begin to think of every “what if” scenario possible and let it overtake or hijack my brain. Scientifically, worry occurs when I allow my amygdala (emotional part of my brain) to control my thinking as opposed to operating from the cerebral cortex (the logical part of my brain). The apostle Paul would say that worry is allowing our minds to be dominated by sinful thinking.
If worrying stems from a lack of trust in God and his power or provision, then worry is a sin.
Romans 8:5-6 “Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.”
That is why it is so important that we as believers, who are given the truth, need to make every effort to take our thoughts captive. It is possible for us to retrain our brains! We don’t have to allow worry to be our mind’s default. Instead, we have the ability to choose something to replace our worry-filled thoughts with. We must learn to take our thoughts captive.
How do we do this? Every time that I begin to feel worried, I need to remind my brain of the truth God shows from His word. I need to remind myself of all the times when God has shown Himself to be a faithful, powerful, and present provider not only in my life, but in the lives of those I have witnessed.
For many of us, I believe what happens is that we get an inflated sense of how big our problems are. (Or imagine our “what if” scenarios to be!) While inflating the worries, we minimize the size of our God. We limit Him. We downplay His greatness. We forget His supremacy. We take the Creator and Savior of the world and make Him have no more power than man.
But that’s not God.
God is so much more. So much bigger. So much more capable. God is so much more powerful than what we can comprehend. And because of who God is, we need to be looking at our worries differently. We need to see that they are actually smaller than we believed them originally to be, and they are definitely manageable to the King of Kings and LORD of Lords.
I am not saying that when actual problems or crisis arise in our lives we should bury our heads in the sand and pretend they do not exist. That they are not painful. That they are not present. But if we are being honest, much of what we worry about is not likely to happen, to play out the way we imagined, or it can be fixed/prevented by taking it to God in prayer.
We are not in denial of our problems. We see them. Yet instead of moving into my emotions and giving them full reign, I am pulling my brain back into a point of logic and relying on what I know. And what I know, is that God and His word can be trusted.
I am not a hostage to my unhealthy and sinful thoughts unless I choose to allow myself to be so. It is within my power and control to choose something different. I have the choice to take my thoughts captive to the Word of God.
“There will always be a battle in your mind. Let Jesus win the battle. Take your thoughts captive and let Jesus replace them with the truth. When you know the truth, the truth will set you free.” – Craig Groeschel
Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) The truth is a person. And that person desires to set you free.
Blessings!