Anxious thoughts are not the same as a worrisome thought.
However, all anxious thoughts lead to worry if not effectively dealt with.
Anxious thoughts are temptations.
They are seeds for doubt. Once accepted, they become sin.
|
Anxious thoughts are like little airplanes trying to land in the fields of our minds.
What are some examples of 'accepting anxious thoughts as true.'
Friendship Example
A friend said something mean and now you wonder if you are going to lose a good friend or already have. A series of thoughts - doubts about the person - begin to fly around your mind.
• Oh yea, I remember that one time she said that before. She already didn't like me back then.
• Now it becomes clear, those times she said those things, she was not sincere. She lied to me.
• I bet she has another friend.
|
Anxious thoughts themselves are not sinful. They become sinful when they catch hold of our hearts. The mind feeds the heart, however. Unless we immediately deal with the anxious thoughts, they penetrate our minds and control them. The more anxious thoughts that 'hang' around, the more we become vulnerable to their destructive work.
Because we are made in God's image, we are not what we think. If this was the case, then nightmares would be true. Instead we have control over our mind and thoughts. We will later see how this allows the Psalmist to find freedom from these anxious thoughts.
If we only had one worry that occasionally troubled us, then it wouldn't even be called worry.
A worry gains its name when it keeps coming back and back again. We tend to lessen our resistance to it and compromise with its demands. Instead we need to intently examine it and destroy it with the truth.
We will explain in detail how these thoughts penetrate the protection of our minds in some future session. At this point we are trying to get an overview of how worries trouble our souls.
So when does an anxious thought become sinful? Next page
