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

by Jennie Allen

“You are smart!” I said. “You are passionate. And generous and creative and cute—” “Mom,” Kate interrupted. “I don’t want to know what you say about me. I want to know what Jesus says.” Oh yeah. Right. Of course. Because everything else is like chasing the wind, Ecclesiastes says.7 Our minds spin and spin, often grabbing hold of lies in the search for stability. Messages get mixed, and it feels as if we can’t quite put our feet back down on the simple truths of what it means to love Jesus, what it means to be loved by Jesus. If, like Kate, you need to be reminded of who Jesus says you are, may I put my hands on the sides of your face and tell you again what He says about Himself and about you? I AM WHO I AM. Exodus 3:14 I am the beginning and the end. I am the first, and I am the last. Revelation 22:13 I am light; in me there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5 My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together. Isaiah 48:13 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Jeremiah 1:5 I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. John 15:16 I am he who blots out your transgressions. I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25 To all who receive Me, who believe in My name, I give the right to become children of God. John 1:12 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’...

That picture of Peter with singular focus on the face of Christ, baby-stepping over those cresting whitecaps—I can’t quit thinking about it. That scene is what inspired part 2 of this book, in fact—this idea that regardless of the wind and the rain and the uncertainty and the fear, when our eyes are fixed on Jesus, we travel on top of, not under, those waves. When we shift from the thoughts that distract and choose to fix our thoughts single-mindedly on Him, everything shifts! But it wasn’t Peter’s strength or willpower that kept him afloat; it was the object of his gaze: Jesus’s face. The enemy is trying to disrupt our single-mindedness. Winning is focusing on Christ. If we think on Christ, if we zoom in and are consumed with Him, then everything else grows strangely dim. But the enemy wants you to focus on anything but Jesus.

I know you might be thinking, Jennie, that’s great. But I just need to quit feeling so anxious. I know. But part of quitting feeling anxious is finding an altogether different reason to live. When Christ is our prize and heaven is our home, we get less anxious because we know our mission, our hope, our God cannot be taken from us.

When you choose not to think that negative thought, and you replace it with a positive one instead, you aren’t just shifting your own reality. You’re shifting reality for the whole human species. You’re adding to the sum of kindness and compassion in the world. You’re reinforcing that new reality field…. You’re helping transform it into an irresistible force that turns the tide of history.3