Facing the Unknown - Part #5, Step #3

Jul

19

Facing the Unknown - Part #5, Step #3

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. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
(Php 4:6-9)

Let’s once again rehash the four steps that Dr. Habermas gave:

Pray (verse 6)
Give thanks and praise (verses 6 &
Change our thoughts (verse
Practice, practice, practice (verse 9)

In this post I am talking about step #3: Changing our thoughts. Dr. Habermas gave three steps for changing our thoughts, and I will go through each one of them in this post. (Note: Dr. Habermas gave the credit for these three steps to Buckus and Chapian’s book Telling Yourself the Truth.)

The first step in changing our thoughts is to locate the lies we tell ourselves. This point is most clearly made through an example. If you walk up to me and call me a pathetic loser then it will certainly hurt. The closer that you are to me emotionally the more that it will hurt. But if I internalize the words that you say to me and I begin to really think that I am a pathetic loser then the words become unbearable. In Dr. Habermas’ words, “The words from you hurt, but the agreement from myself cripples.“

I think that we have all had hurtful words said to us by someone that we cared deeply about. The exact situation will vary from person to person, but I am sure that everyone reading this has had at least one person who’s respect they desperately wanted and needed say things that hurt. Whether the person is a mother, a father, a guardian, or a lover, the point is the same. We needed their approval and instead of building us up they tore us down. We’ve all experienced that, and it is incredibly painful. But the real problem comes when we internalize the words that the person told us and we begin to repeat them to ourselves as truth. The first step in changing our thoughts is to begin to recognize the lies that we internalized as being just what they are: Lies.

Another type of lie that we tell ourselves is in the form of “what-if” scenarios. I’ve already mentioned this several times, but it’s a point that I want to stress. When we are worried about a situation and we begin to run through the maybes and what-ifs then all that we are doing is telling ourselves lies. None of us know the future, but we do know that if we love God then He will cause all things to work together for good!

With that said, the second step in changing our thoughts is to remove the lies by arguing against them. Once we have located a lie then we need to remove the lie by saying to ourselves, “That’s just a lie, and it’s not true because _______.” The key here is to focus on God’s promises and to replace the lies with truth (the third step). For instance, if I am worrying over the security of my job then it’s tempting to start obsessing over what might happen. Instead of doing that I should focus on the promises of God by reminding myself that everything works together for good. That means that even if I do lose my job (in this hypothetical scenario) then God would still work it out for the best! I have nothing to worry about!

Once I have reminded myself of the promises of God then I should replace the lies with truth. Earlier in this post I used the illustration of someone walking up to me and calling me a pathetic loser. While I am sure that there are people in the world who do think that I’m a pathetic loser, I know deep down that it’s really not true. Sure, I’m not perfect (no one is) but instead of internalizing the words that they say to me I can argue against them (in my own mind) by telling myself, for example, that I am a successful student, a good employee, and that God has blessed me with many wonderful friends and a wonderful family who think very highly of me.

Now, that would work for this example, but what if I was at a point where I was really down in life? What if I wasn’t a successful student and I was without a job? What if I really did feel like a pathetic loser? Well, in that case I can still argue against the lie and refuse to internalize it by reminding myself of one simple yet crucial fact: I am a child of God! No matter how down I am right now and no matter how bad things are I am still successful if I am a child of God. There is nothing that can separate me from His love, and I can reassure myself that He will work everything out for the best, regardless of how bad things look right now!

I am convinced that all four of the steps Dr. Habermas gives–prayer, thanksgiving, changing our thoughts, and practicing–go together; but if I had to pick the most important one from a purely natural, non-spiritual perspective, then changing our thoughts would be the one that I would choose. This can work for anyone, whether or not they are a Christian! However, I believe that being a Christian and understanding that God causes everything to work together for good empowers this step with the power to change a Christian in ways that it could not change a non-Christian.

In the next post I will give the final step: Practice. Until then I strongly encourage you to begin to practice these steps right here, right now, in whatever areas of your life that you are worrying about. If you struggle with insecurity and hurts from the past then you can begin to apply these three steps right now. If you are facing the unknown then I encourage you to stop running through the “what-ifs” right now, right this very second, and begin to pray, give thanksgiving, and change your thoughts by focusing on the promises of God!