The following is from our recently released e-book, Anxiety Isn’t the End of Your Story. In it, we give 3 steps you can take daily to overcome your anxiety. While all three steps are excellent to utilize in your daily battle against anxious thoughts (if you have them). This week, I thought it would be helpful to focus on just one practice, which I refer to as “casting out your negative thoughts.”
The phrasing of this practice as “cast out” might seem strange to some, because your thoughts are not literal demons. However, it is still good for you to send every negative or anxious thought to Jesus so that, if this thought is false, Jesus can help you replace it with the truth.
How you think is powerful. Our brains are wired for storytelling, and the things we tell ourselves can in turn inspire emotions, attitudes, behaviors, actions, and ultimately what results or outcomes we get in our lives. Thus, having many negative thoughts can drag you down, ruin your quality of life, and keep you from living the life of peace and joy you were meant for.
Note that this process occurs whether those thoughts are true or false. Most often, negative thoughts are either completely false or at least contain some falsehood, perhaps disguised by a small grain of truth to get in the door. This is why it is important to cast out negative or anxious thoughts and allow Jesus to replace them with the fullness of truth.
It’s also important to know that not every thought you have originates from you. Some thoughts can also come from God, and some can come from the enemy. It is good to remember that not every negative or anxious thought you have comes from the enemy; some simply come from our worldview that has been shaped and trained to think negatively about certain things.
What do I mean by negative or anxious thoughts? I do not mean a thought you have about some type of food that you don’t like or even a person who rubs you the wrong way. The thoughts that I am referring to are the ones that involve you thinking poorly about yourself, your life, or other people, in an unreasonable way that hurts you more than it helps you.
These are thoughts like, “I will never amount to anything.” “I don’t have any good qualities,” or “My life is not as good as that person.” None of these are true, but they can still wreak severe havoc, and so they need to be dealt with as soon as possible.
How do you deal with these? You cast them out. You bind the thoughts in the name of Jesus, and then you send them to Him for Him to deal with.
For example, let’s say I am thinking that I am unlovable, and the thought especially comes up when someone I just met accidentally gets my name wrong. I might start thinking, “I am not important enough to remember,” even though it was an honest, impersonal mistake. I should catch that thought, remembering that most negative thoughts I think about myself are lies. Here is how I would deal with it:
I would say, “In the name of Jesus, I bind this thought that I am unimportant, and I cast it out, sending it to Jesus at the foot of His cross for Him to deal with it as He pleases.” Then, I would sit in silence and wait for Jesus to take it and fill me with the truth. He might say something like, “You are loved.” “You are important, and this person made a mistake,” or something else.
If you have trouble hearing back from Jesus, do not worry. Try forgiving everyone involved in the situation or letting go of other unforgiveness in your life if you can. You should also continue to stay open to God giving you these truths. Remain faithful to the practice of setting aside time to just sit with Him and express your desire to hear from Him in this way. Many people have found that God may not always reply during their prayer time, but He will gift them some insight later, as they go about their daily life. However, even if this does not happen, by simply casting out the negative or anxious thoughts in the name of Jesus, you have still properly dealt with them.
By casting out these thoughts, you are like a gardener removing the weeds from your garden, allowing the true and good thoughts you have, the ones that are based on reality, to flourish and grow. This will allow your peace and joy to grow too, which will help you grow in your thought life to overcome anxiety and negative thinking.
You can begin this practice right now. Cast out any negative thoughts that you have been thinking. Furthermore, invite Jesus to replace these lies with the truth of what He thinks of you and your situation.
If you would like to read about the other two steps we include in our e-book, Anxiety Isn’t the End of Your Story, you can get it here.
Furthermore, if you would like more one-on-one assistance with overcoming anxiety, consider our Mentorship program where we combine inner healing, spiritual direction, and life coaching to help people overcome anxiety and other obstacles restricting their spiritual growth to find the joy in life they are created for. Learn more at https://zenithministries.com/mentorship
