Friday; September 6

Are you struggling with anxiety caused by invasive thoughts?  There may be some of you who are scratching your heads right now trying to figure out what I am asking; however, I imagine there are several people nodding their heads.  Invasive thoughts are those ideas that tend to invade our consciousness that we never can really shake.  They may not be true (or even possible), but they keep spinning around in our minds causing us to lose our contentment.  As a life-long sufferer of this, there are a couple of things I have realized:

1.  These thoughts tend to stay embedded in our minds because we never really think them through to a logical conclusion.  We never get around to coming up with answers or processes to deal with our fears, so they just keep spinning around inside us.

2.  These thoughts tend to be troubling because we constantly imagine the worst possible outcome.  When we struggle with what might happen, we don’t invest in hope or positivity – all we can imagine is failure.

3.  These things tend to steal the joy out of life.  Because we are so focused on what might happen we often miss what is actually happening – especially the good stuff.  We tend to see how bad things could be (self-fulfilling prophecies) and miss out on how well things are actually going. 

While these observations tend to keep us discouraged, there is something that can help us improve our thought process if we let it.  The Bible reminds us, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7).  A good prayer life and a solid faith can go a long way to taking the edge off of our anxiety.  Are we willing to invest in bringing our Lord into our minds?  He doesn’t promise that we will always get what we want, but He does pledge to be with us no matter what happens. 

Think About It! 

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