Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts

by Jennie Allen

don’t even like cheeseburgers all that much. I mean, they’re fine, but it’s not as if I think about them all day long. But deprive me of a cheeseburger, and I’m going to want a cheeseburger. Welcome to the human mind. If we try to avoid sin by reminding ourselves day by day not to lie or not to cheat or not to steal or not to pour that third glass of wine or not to hide that shopping bag from our spouse or not to fudge that expense report at work or not to sneak a second serving of cheesecake after everyone else has gone to bed, then guess what we’re going to focus on? Far better to focus on what will pull us forward than try to focus on what won’t push us back. That singular thought—I choose to serve—leads to our taking risks on Jesus’s behalf, which leads to our taking our eyes off ourselves and to seeing the needs of others for a change, which leads to our taking action to the glory of God, which leads to our depending more and more on divine strength from our Father, which leads to a deeper longing to worship Him. Those moments of unbounded worship then prompt us to long for even greater spiritual adventures, which makes us willing to take yet another risk. That risk would lead to more service, dependency, and so on.