Often Satan sneaks in negative thoughts and we don’t realize he is the source. As a result, I felt alert and challenged when I heard a woman on the radio say Satan caused most of the judgment she felt others must be placing upon her. She wrongly assumed others judged her for her unwanted divorce, (her wicked husband abandoned her and their children.) I thought about her words and realized I have felt judgment so subtle, I did not realize the evil source of those negative thoughts. We often recognize the really bad thoughts Satan plants in our minds. For example, Satan often lies to us in these areas: relationships, our value or nature, our work for God, God’s care for us, our behavior (or others’), our thoughts (or others’), our relationship with God, God’s nature, our status, and our emotions (to name just a few.) For example, you know you have surrendered your life to the Lord. As a result, when Satan says you are not saved, you realize this is the devil. The attack was too obvious, so you recognize it. Words of condemnation are obviously from Satan, because God promised to not condemn us: Roms.8:1, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” When Satan speaks against the Scripture’s truths, we recognize the lies.
But when Satan is subtle, we may believe his lies, as did this sweet, single mom I heard on the radio. Over time, she realized how much the people at her church loved her and received her. They could not blame a godly woman who did everything she could to hold her marriage together when an unfaithful spouse abandoned her and her children. There was no condemnation. This mom explained that Satan used the truth, that God hates divorce to make her think her church condemned her. But that was a distortion of God’s truth. God actually condemns the HUSBANDS who abandoned their wives in Malachi2:16, “For I hate divorce, says the Lord God of Israel. To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. So guard your heart. Do not be unfaithful to your wife.” This passage addressed the exact type of man this woman was divorced from, a man who abandoned is wife. This mom did not merit any judgment, and over time she realized the devil had distorted Scripture and used what was meant to support her, instead to judge and condemn her.
I was alert when I heard this lady, because I realized I had been judging myself about some things that were not wrong, or at least not of my doing. There is a certain situation where I have prayed, but God has not opened a door. Yet in self-judgment, I had been saying I was “guilty of just settling for less.” I did not get that idea on my own, but I have heard others say that about me in disdain. But that day, after hearing the lady on the radio, I realized the opportunity I had been praying for had not opened for me. I was more than willing to walk into that situation and had worked for it, trying many things to bring it about, but that door remained closed. God closed the door not me. Yet I had lived under condemnation for a long time.
But there were even smaller ways that Satan had been telling me lies. This next one may sound silly, but in my late 50’s, I have no need to wear things that look “too young,” for me. I am very comfortable being my age and am not trying to look younger than I am. Yet somehow I had taken this too far and was actually criticizing myself about my hair. Here is how; I use the exercise bike, and although I pull up my hair in a hair scrunchy, too many tendrils fall into my face. So I have a thin hair band that I put over my head, to hold down my stray hair (in the pony tail). I have seen young soccer players do this, and it seemed too young for me to do. So I always scolded myself saying I looked ugly doing that, because I am too old to wear that style. Sometimes no one even sees me, since I often cycle before my family gets up. And I do this alone in the garage. One day I actually looked at myself in the mirror and was surprised to see I did not look foolish and did not look ugly. Where did that lie come from? It was so subtle, but it was a very mean thought that I never realized was from Satan. The devil had been telling me this to make me feel badly about myself. Sure, it is a very small thing (and I am not on the exercise bike long so the bad thought did not last long.) But it was a lie, all the same.
Then I began to ask myself, “How often do these very small thoughts creep up, and they end up making me feel badly about myself?” Part of these thoughts come from a real person in my life, and he is very critical of me. He says harsh things about me, and nearly all of that criticism is a lie. My close family and true friends are very disappointed with him and always tell me the truth. My friends and close family do not flatter me either. If I am wearing something goofy, they tell me. If I have done something that hurt them, they will confront me. So these are not people who flatter me with “nice lies.” They are loving truth tellers. As such, when that harsh and critical person speaks mean things to me that contradict the kind and true things my loved ones say, I know he is telling me lies. But some of those lies managed to sneak into my mind and sounded like my own thoughts. This was true of the hair band and the lie that I was wearing something “only for youths,” and as such I looked ugly. I know my hair band is not pretty either, but it works to keep my hair out of my eyes.
As such, I am learning that I need to be aware of the negative things spoken by people with whom I have to interact. Then I need to be alert when self-negative thoughts pop into my mind. If my bad thoughts fit the words this harsh person tends to use, then these thoughts are lies based upon that person’s false criticism. And I also heard mean lies when I was a child. Some came from my family of origin, and others from bullies in my classes. I need to aware of these categories of lies, so I can rebuke them when they try to creep into my thoughts.
I want to warn you all, too, so you can be alert to these lies. For example, I was “accused” of being an introvert. First, introversion is a beautiful personality style, and one of my daughters is an introvert. I have many introverted friends. But I test as an extrovert (Meier’s Briggs), although I am not a strong extrovert. I need plenty of time alone, and if others are very forceful and demand to be the center of the attention, I get quiet and let them take the center stage. This is why they “accused” me of being an introvert, as if my polite silence was wrong. But because of that criticism, I sometimes feel guilty for enjoying time alone, reading, writing or doing other things. I love people and love to spend time with them, and in my alone time, I often read Christian literature, or information that helps around the house (health, safety, gardening and school information.) As long as I am serving others sufficiently, spending some time alone reading is not a sin.
Furthermore, I was teased about being clumsy. It turns out I have a genetic disorder, and my connective tissue stretches too far. I wrote in much more detail about that in my post “Identifying Patterns in Injuries: Clumsy or Congenital Defect?” so be sure to read that for more details. But in short, I am a bit more “clumsy” than others, and that is not a sin either. No one should mock me for a bit of clumsiness, because I am not carelessly clumsy. I don’t spill on others, step on them, or hurt them. If anyone gets hurt, it is me. But the devil, plus a few cruel people, have given me grief and shame about my clumsy side. I should never feel shame about that issue.
From the few stories I shared, I hope you see the pattern. We may have been teased as youths or even have a present day accuser. Either way, when we hear negative words others speak, we might accidentally internalize them and then speak those harsh things to ourselves.
Yet, what does God say about us? Zeph.3:17 is so vibrant, let’s look at that entire verse: “The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He takes great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.” God adores us. He yearns for us to repent of our sins (Acts3:19, “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”) He willingly and instantly forgives those who truly repent (2Chron30:9b, “For the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.”) We are his beloved (Jer.31:3, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”) We are his bride (2 Corinthians 11:2,Ephesians 5:27,Revelation 19:7 .) Really, there are so many good things God says about us, that when we begin to think harsh thoughts against ourselves, we need to bring all of those thoughts to the Lord and compare what God says about us with what our thoughts are saying. We have to be careful. Our negative thoughts may sound sensible (the way my criticism of my wearing that thin hair band had sounded.) But if we end up being harsh with ourselves, this is not God’s voice.
We say the Christian life is a battle. We know we have to battle sickness, the evil of others (thieves, etc.), good people who sin against us (even loved ones who act out of their sin nature), and more. But part of our battle begins in our minds. We hear the verse, “Take every thought captive,” (2Cor10:15.) We truly need to capture our thoughts. I had let those two negative thoughts hurt me until I realized they were lies.
Please feel free to tell me about ways you have fought and won this battle against negative thoughts, especially the subtle ones that sound like they agree with Scripture or sound sensible. Those thoughts are the hardest ones to fight, because we don’t realize they are truly negative and even demonic. With help from God’s word and from other loving Christians (like the sweet lady on my radio that day), we can learn to recognize these lies and toss them out of our mind. Thanks for joining us in this post. Feel free to share this post with others.