A Sound Mind

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
2 Timothy 1:7

Oh, how I have longed for a sound mind.  To not fret, to be still, to escape the worrisome ideas the enemy screams into my head...this became my quest.  Just the other day, the Holy Spirit nudged me to see something in this verse I thought I knew well.  I looked at it again with clarity: 

God has [already]...given...a sound mind.

I do have the soundness of mind I've so desired!  Those of us who believe in Christ as our Savior all possess it, even when we feel like we don't.  When thoughts that we despise creep in, it's not our job to seek a sound mind; we already have it, given to us by God.

As a preacher of truth, Charles Spurgeon experienced the enemy's tormenting mind games.  In his work All of Grace, he states:

"These thoughts, if you hate them, are none of yours, but are injections of the devil for which he is responsible, not you...The poor diseased woman could not come to Jesus for the press, and you are in much the same condition because of the rush and throng of these dreadful thoughts.  Still, she put forth her finger and touched the fringe of the Lord's garment, and she was healed.  Do you the same...He can still those horrible whisperings of the fiend, or He can enable you to see them in their true light so that you may not be worried by them...Only trust Him for this and everything else." (From The Essential Works of Charles Spurgeon, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc.  Used by permission).

It is a tactic of God's enemy to make us believe that we are responsible for abominable thoughts that we detest.  If he can worry us, he can cause all sorts of havoc: drawing us away from Christ because of shame, making us believe we are responsible for thoughts we hate, giving us a disgraceful view of ourselves, causing us to forget who we are in Christ and that His blood has made us whole and clean, and even putting fear in us because of scary topics.

If a visible person were standing beside me making atrocious claims, I would be repulsed, but it would be obvious that someone else said the things, not me.  Why is it hard to accept that Satan sends out his minions to do this?  When we are in Christ, He has already bestowed soundness of mind on us.  He gives the Holy Spirit to be our Counselor, to provide us with discernment.  We need not be worried by the "whisperings of the fiend," or think that we need to control them.  We do as James says and first "submit to God," then "resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7).

My sins in this department are worrying, fear, and trying to take control.  God didn't give me a spirit of fear; remember 2 Timothy 1:7?  I can't stop someone (even a demon) from attempting to bully me, but I can invoke the name of Christ and resist it.  Thinking that I'm the perpetrator of thoughts I hate is playing into the enemy's lie.  Confessing my worry about it, my fear of it, and my desire to control it enables me to give God back His job as my Rescuer. And I can say right out loud, "God has given me soundness of mind, and you are the Father of Lies.  I choose to walk in the light and truth of Christ." 

Even with soundness of mind I should still seek and ask God for what Paul describes in Philippians 4:8.  He says to meditate, or "think on" what is "true...noble...right...pure...lovely...admirable...excellent...and praiseworthy." We can request that the Holy Spirit to fill our minds with these things because it's what God commands, and we should want to think about such things.  But beware: just because we long for this doesn't mean we are exempt from the enemy's attempts.  In fact, I imagine he will try all the more to throw us off and cause us to believe God must just not be hearing us.  

He is the Father of Lies, remember?  We are mortals on a challenging journey of sanctification.  Go back to what Spurgeon says: if we hate them, the thoughts are not ours.  So, I keep praying Philippians 4:13, thanking God for the sound mind He's already given me, and further asking Him to help my heart fully believe what my head can read in Scripture.  Being "transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2) doesn't mean happy, joyful thoughts all the time.  Spiritual bullies will always seek to steal our joy (John 10:10). I'm seeing that being transformed in my mind means believing I am who Christ says I am, not who the enemy wants me to think I am.  

Jesus lovingly told a woman who was threatened by her accusers, "I am the light of the world.  He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life" (John 8:12).  He Himself is the light who stamps out darkness; we only have to trust Him, confessing our doubt and fears.  He loves and accepts us as we are, but wants to fight our battles for us. Jesus is the bully silencer, the sound mind-giver.  I am in the process of learning to accept His gift of a sound mind and trust Him as my Rescuer, the Good Shepherd (John 10:11).