Have you caught yourself looking at your life and thinking this? I know I have! I’ve been caught in the destructive cycles of my emotions and my behaviors, and I’ve caught myself asking ‘why am I doing this when it’s not even what I want to do?’
Take a minute and read the passage below. It was written by Paul and is one of the most relatable things that I’ve ever read. Maybe you’ll relate to it as well.
Romans 5:15-25
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not swell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do- this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it si no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at wor: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law, but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”
Basically, Paul is asking the same question that we are asking, “Why am I doing this?”
Just like us, Paul wants to be free of a behavior that he is doing. He knows it’s wrong, and that the cycle that he’s stuck in isn’t a good one. Have you been there too? I know I have!
Paul gives us an answer to the big question- WHY? He points out that it is SIN that is waging war inside of him.
It took me a VERY long time to accept that some of my behaviors were sinful. It took me an even longer time to admit that my Eating Disorder was the enemy speaking to me and that the behaviors that I was engaging in were because I didn’t trust the Lord.
When Paul is talking about sin here, he isn’t doing it to call us out or condemn us. He wants us to understand that fundamental question of why.
The enemy wants you, and the enemy is going to use every tactic that he can to make you do things HIS way. His way is leading you further and further away from God and toward death (physical, mental, spiritual!)
When you think about your mental health, and you think about your thoughts, do they sound like they come from God? Do they sound like things God would want you to be doing or thinking? Do your thoughts prompt you to go down roads of anxiety, anger, fear, depression and eventually go towards behaviors that you know are wrong?
Take depression as an example. At one of my lowest points in my Eating Disorder, I remember waking up one morning and I did not want to get out of bed. So I stayed. I laid there the entire day steeped in these thoughts about how awful I was, how terrible the situation was, and how there was no way to fix it. The enemy kept me down that day. But he started with one single thought- I’m sad. He then put a behavior thought with it- I’m not even going to get out of bed. Once he had me down and had me acting on those thoughts, thats when he really started chatting with me. The enemy talked to me ALL DAY, while I just laid there and listened to these thoughts in my head. (check out my post: How to Deal with Overwhelming Sadness)
Have you been there too? Because the truth is, no one wants to spend there days like this! Everyone WANTS to get out of bed and have a good day. Why would I intentionally stay in bed all day thinking bad things about myself?
The enemy. I listened to the instructions and behavior patterns that the enemy wanted me to. That’s the WHY.
Our charge, as Christians, is to love God before anyone else. In loving Him, we are called to listen to Him and obey Him. Listening to the loud thoughts of the enemy is NOT what He wants us to do. God loves us too much to leave us in bed all day thinking badly about ourselves.
Our mental health is so important. The enemy uses these footholds and tactics against us to see which thought patterns and behavior patterns he can get to stick. That’s why it’s so important that we take control of our mental health. That means taking control BACK inside of our minds and instead giving that control to the Lord.
And the enemy might even have fooled you into the thoughts about how these behaviors are your choice, therefore you are in control. This is a lie too. If you were to look at what you are doing objectively, do you really want to live in these thought patterns and behaviors?
It’s important to understand that we can talk back to these thoughts and that we can choose to act differently. I didn’t know that simple fact until I was in treatment. They started teaching me how to replace the thoughts I was having with more rational thoughts. I took it a step further and replaced them with the thoughts that God would want me to have about myself.
Christian affirmations are so important the healing our mental health. Those replacement thoughts need to be steeped in God’s words about us.
To start taking action on this, begin with making a list of the most overwhelming thoughts that run through your head that cause you to turn towards a behavior. My thought that would often start my spiral downwards into deep anxiety was ‘I can’t handle this.’ So, this is the thought that I made bow down to God with an affirmation. When that thought comes into my mind, I replace it with “I can handle anything because God is in control of this situation.”
By fighting this spiritual and mental war in your mind, with the tactics that we need to, we can overcome some of our most disastrous behaviors.
Our mental health will never be perfect- no one’s is. Accept the fact that you will spend a lot of time fighting your mental health until one day, it won’t be as bad anymore. Some days will be worse than others, but it all starts with the foundation of thinking the way that God wants us to think.
Check out these articles:
Healing your Mental Health Spiritually
Check out these products:
The Cliff: Transitions Devotional
The Cliff: A Recovery Devotional
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I am always praying for you,
