God: It can be hard to catch when you have an unhealthy thought. People don’t generally think things that are unhealthy knowingly and purposefully—they think it is truth.
The key to handling your own mind is to let me be part of the regular conversation.
Legalism is utterly incapable of creating a healthy thought life. Because legalism is concerned with the appearance of truth, not an honest assessment of it. It will “strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel”.
If you catch a thought in the act—great! But to expect you to every time, requires you to more than double your mental energy just to think. That is using a ton of energy and is based in distrusting your own thought pattern. In other words, legalistic approach to handling your thought life is steeped in inherent distrust.
For a season, such a heavy-handed approach may be required. But it must result in my heart change, which means I must be involved. Otherwise, a lie is simply being covered. The root must be resolved.
When you know I have given you words to speak, speaking them holds power, because you know I have given you the truth. And eventually, you realize it is true! But if I’m not involved, you merely hope you are incorrect. It doesn’t work.
Joshua: God, positive speaking is a common teaching, and I don’t think I disagree with it. Are you saying we shouldn’t be trying to replace our—sorry, I just remembered this is about me… I’m paranoid, thinking this might go online, but I need to focus on us right here.
Um… so like… I’m kind of confused. Are you saying our words don’t matter?
God: No. Your words matter way more than you realize.
Joshua: Well, if someone says something awful, and legalism doesn’t work, how do they get themselves to believe the truth? I’ve always heard that you just keep saying it.
God: (nods) Here is the key you are missing: it has to be my truth.
A Christian leading teaching in positive thinking has a special anointing to find the truth. You are thinking of someone. A Christian, walking with me, can get a special word of knowledge, highlighting the truth someone who perhaps isn’t even my follower may have missed. Bad “positive thinking” is gaslighting. But good positive thinking highlights the forgotten truth.
If someone claims “I have a healthy work environment” but doesn’t, they are gaslighting themselves. If, alternatively, they have grown to hate their work, but it is due to exhaustion or other factors, someone claiming “I love my work” may actually be recovering what was lost to other issues.
A good Christian leading in positive thinking teaching is also operating in words of knowledge. That helps them identify the lost truth. Someone who isn’t a Christian may have the insight required, but a Christian gets a cheat code—they have access to me.
The key that you are missing is that you are not enough, in and of yourself, to have healthy thought patterns. Truth must invade. What is way more effective than constantly policing yourself—like you have been—is instead to ask, at the beginning of each day, “what is the truth you want me to keep in mind today?”
The problem with your approach, is that while it sounds like vigilance, it is actually faultfinding. It is a shame-based approach. Again: there is a season where an approach like that isn’t shame-based, and may be necessary. We have had a lot of times like those. But you can’t live your entire life like that. Focusing on my truth, will naturally shove away any lie. Just trying to find lies is like trying to clear water out of a ditch with a broom.
There is a season for that. But you need my truth. You already know that my truth must replace any lies you believe. Rather than waiting for the lie, I can give you the truth ahead of time.