Taking Every Thought Captive — Rebecca Guerrero

Feb 21

Feb 21 Taking Every Thought Captive

a blog and book review

Paul challenges his readers to take every thought captive. But how do you practically do that? Jon Acuff’s book Soundtracks provides practical tools to do just that. Here’s a few thoughts from, and inspired by Acuff’s book I originally shared with our church’s youth group.

I am the bully

In high school, I had an incredibly talented group of friends. They were always cast as the leads in our school musicals. And I never was. Which was pretty heartbreaking for me. What made it worse, was this girl who would tease me relentlessly about it. She would remind me I wasn’t as good as everyone else. In reality she was kind of a bully. Then senior year, for homecoming, I had a girl in my class come up to me and tell me I deserved to be on court, even though I wasn’t. My bully immediately jumped in and told me that the reason I wasn’t on court was because I wasn’t pretty enough. But it didn’t end there, that bully went with me to college, and into my first adult job…..

because that bully was me.

In this world, there will be people who are mean and unkind and say cruel things to us. But if you find yourself in a place where the person who is the meanest and the unkindest to you is that voice in your head; then you are not alone. According to studies, 99.5% of people say that overthinking -the persistent voice that plays negative messages about themselves in their minds- gets in their way of becoming who they want to be. With numbers like that, if you find yourself overthinking, know you are in good company. And if the worst bully you face is the one in your own mirror, you are not alone

Paul's bully

Now this wasn’t the case for the apostle Paul, one of the primary authors of the Christian Scriptures. He had some flesh and blood bullies in his life. Some of them were from outside the church, and these people tried multiple times to kill Paul and his fellow missionaries. But Paul also had bullies in the church; people who professed to be believers but questioned Paul in a whole lot of ways. We find all about these bullies in 2 Corinthians.

You see, Paul had started the church in Corinth but when he left them, things took a turn for the worse, and rather quickly. Other preachers came to town who were wealthier and better speakers than Paul and their influence led the church in Corinth astray and to look down on Paul. So Paul writes a series of letters to work out the differences between him and his mentors in Corinth. The book of the Bible we call 2nd Corinthians is written as part of the reconciliation process between Paul and the church he started in Corinth. As part of that reconciliation, he defends his reputation against his accusers. But, as he gets ready to make his defense, Paul points out that the real enemy isn’t the bullies and the real war isn’t a physical one.

The Message version of the Bible makes it a bit easier to wrap our heads around this passage:

“The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.” - 2 Corinthians 10: 3-5

The NIV puts verse 5 this way, “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.

Woah wait a second there...aren’t thoughts something we have, not something we can control? Or are they

Silencio Bruno

Have you seen the Pixar film Luca?

In it a fearful little boy named Luca is taught by his new friend to tell this negative voice, known as Bruno to be silent! Maybe you have a voice in your head like Luca who tells you all the things you shouldn’t do and keeps you paralyzed in fear on the sideline. Or maybe your voice is a bully like mine. Regardless of what your inner-voice sounds like, Paul reminds us that we can take every thought captive. We can control our thoughts through God’s help and make it obedient to Christ. And that last part is important! We have to make our thoughts obedient to Christ. Because despite what the voices in our head says, Jesus tells us we are forgiven and loved, and blessed with talents. And what’s sad, is the voice in your head is already trying to tell you that I’m wrong. It might already be whispering that’s not true, you don’t have any real talents. Or it might be whispering that you just aren’t good enough to get the job done or follow through. Or it might be telling you that acknowledging your talents and gifting is prideful. And that’s when you have to say silencio Bruno!

True humility

Because humility, which is the opposite of pride, is not about hiding or denying the passion and talents God has uniquely wired you with. Humility is agreeing with God about who he says we are.

And what does God say about you? He says you:

are chosen

“For He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.” -Ephesians 1:4

are a work of art created with a purpose

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” -Ephesians 2:10

are empowered to live lives of discipline

“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” -2 Timothy 1:7

are NEVER alone

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:38-39

So if you want to maximize your growth as a follower of Jesus, you have to learn how to turn our tendency towards negative overthinking from a super-problem to a super-power.

As I mentioned in this introduction, my main resource for this blog is a book called Soundtracks by Jon Acuff. So let’s look at some of the things he suggests to help us manage our thoughts.

What is a soundtrack?

Now you might be wondering why the book is called Soundtracks. Ever get a song stuck in your head? What songs do you sing over and over? What song or maybe a part of a song plays in your head non-stop?

Well often our negative thoughts are just like that. They are like songs stuck in our head. And if we are going to change our thinking pattern and take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ, then we are going to have to get a new playlist. And that is what we are going to learn how to do over the next seven weeks.

We are taught to be disciplined in other areas of our lives, whether it's doing chores or working out. Yet we often talk about our thoughts like things that happen to us not things you can control and practice and get better at. Instead we are going to learn how to renew our minds and make our thoughts obedient to Christ so we can be the very best versions of ourselves that God has called us to be.

Psychology of overthinking

In his book, Jon Acuff describes this negative thought pattern as a result of overthinking. He defines overthinking pretty simply - “Overthinking is when what you think gets in the way of what you want.”

So why does all this overthinking this happen in the first place? Well it has a lot to do with how our brains work. In addition to teaching history and government I also teach psychology. Psychology is the study of behavior and mental processes. It seeks to ask the question why do people do what they do. So let’s talk about all the reasons our brain works against us to create negative, broken soundtracks.

First - Trauma

Did you know there is no word in the English language the opposite of trauma? According to Psychology professor Paul Rozin and Roy F. Baumeister the reason no such word exists is because while a SINGLE negative event can wreak havoc on your life, no single good event has that kind of lasting impact. We can purposely pull up good memories if we try. Stop right now and think of a happy memory - your birthday, a recent outing with friends or family, meeting your puppy for the first time. See we can think about good things on purpose BUT our involuntary thoughts -the ones we don’t have to think about and pop in our brain uninvited- tend to be unhappy.

Second - our brain actually lies about our memories

We often think about our memory system like a library of books we can flip through. But it's more like a computer. And just like a computer every time we open a memory file, we can, and actually do, rewrite it. So the more often we recall an event - which we do often with negative things- the more likely it is to get written over incorrectly and made worse.

Third - our brain can’t tell the difference between real or fake trauma

Ever have a friend jokingly say something mean and yet even though you knew that friend and knew they were kidding you still kind of were hurt? Why did that happen? Because whether the hurt is real or fake your body still fills your bloodstream with chemicals to try to protect you from the pain, your brain doesn’t know the difference.

(Parents - this is the reason sometimes your kids come home and tell you about something someone said at lunch and you think it's“no big deal” and they act like it's the end of the world. Your kids are reacting to the very real trauma response they experienced.)

Fourth- our brain agrees with what it already believes

Psychology once again has a label for this, it's known as confirmation bias. For example, if you have a negative soundtrack that you are a not good enough soccer goalie and and at tryouts stop 31/32 shots on goal, guess what your brain is going to focus on? If you said the one you missed then you are most certainly correct.

Now all that sounds like a big bummer but there is a whole lot of hope. Our brain is only one part of us and it can learn a new playlist by building new soundtracks! We can change our thoughts and how our brain works. Psychologists call this neuroplasticity.

Jon Acuff puts it like this: “Neuroplasticity, which is the power to physically change our brains by changing our thoughts, means the solution to overthinking isn't to stop thinking. Why would we ever get rid of such a powerful, efficient tool? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just run our brains with different soundtracks instead of broken ones? A plane can drop a bomb or food. A syringe can deliver poison or medicine. A stallion can start a stampede or win a race. The same is true for our thoughts. If you can worry, you can wonder. If you can doubt, you can dominate. If you can spin, you can soar.”

We have to choose what soundtracks we listen to. Our goal is to Retire broken soundtracks. Replace them with positive ones and Repeat them until they are as automatic as the negative tunes that are currently playing in our heads. So how can we begin to do that?

Identifying Broken Soundtracks

Philippians 4:8 reads “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of respect, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if something is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things.”

The Bible commands us to think about positive things, how can we do this?

There are 3 questions we can ask ourselves to identify Soundtracks that are broken or harmful.

First: Is it True?

One of our greatest mistakes is assuming that all our thoughts are true. The hard thing about broken Soundtracks is that they are partially true.

One of my broken soundtracks is that if I plan things well enough I can prevent stuff from going wrong. I tend to do this for all sorts of events like vacations or Thanksgiving. Now there is an element or truth to that. For a family gathering “an ounce of preventative planning” can brevent a whole lot of what could go wrong. But there is no way I can prevent every potential problem.

The next problem is sometimes there’s a soundtrack below the soundtrack. Now, I am an enneagram 8. I value respect. So I assume that when things go wrong, no one will respect me. That's the soundtrack underneath the broken soundtrack that if I plan things well enough things will go wrong. You see sometimes these things have layers.

So how do you combat these broken Soundtracks? Find evidence to the contrary and get a second opinion. For me and my holiday hang-ups this means simply stopping and observing and asking my husband if folks are enjoying themselves.

At the end of the day, don’t assume the Soundtracks you hear the most are the most honest ones. We often think the fact that the voice we hear in our head is the one most familiar to us, it must be telling us the truth. But frequency of a Soundtrack has little to do with its accuracy.

Second question we need to ask our Soundtracks:Is it Helpful?

Does it move you forward or keep you stuck? Does it lead to a decision or limit a decision? Does it generate action or apathy?

Broken soundtracks can be sneaky about convincing you they are true. Ever replay a conversation you had last week over and over in your head? Your internal voice will convince you this is a good use of time because you are analyzing a conversation so you can avoid upsetting that person in the future. But is this kind of activity ever helpful? Does it move you forward in your relationship? Or is it more of a hindrance? Does it create action or does it lead you to analysis paralysis? If a soundtrack seems truthful but isn’t helpful, it’s time to ditch it.

The third question you need to ask, of a soundtrack is: Is it Kind?

Is the soundtrack you’re listening to kind to yourself? Do you feel better about yourself after listening to it a few times? You might find yourself justifying an unkind or untrue or unhelpful soundtrack as tough love. At the end of the day ask; “Would I say this to a friend?”

How to flip Soundtracks

We are charged in Philippians 4:4 to rejoice in the Lord always. But how is that possible when so many negative thoughts occupy our headspace?

Well the passage goes on to give us some hints.

Philipians 4:4-7 reads, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice! Let everyone see your gentleness. The Lord is near! Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

So what do we do?

We rejoice. We give thanks. We take our negative thoughts captive and focus on the words of the Lord.

Of course, that's just the beginning. What practical tools can make that a reality? Well I highly recommend you add Jon Acuff’s book Soundtracks to your reading list asap to find out!. And, if you have a young person in your life (or are one) check out the companion book by his teen daughters, Your New Playlist. Find these, and many other Jon Acuff books, wherever books are sold.