Changing the narrative

The life we live is a direct reflection of the thoughts we think

In the first week we looked at the difference in being a believer and a believer who follows. There’s a big difference in simply believing in Jesus and following Jesus. None of Jesus’ disciples followed because they believed, they believed because they followed.

In week two we looked at what is supposed to identify us as a Jesus follower. Jesus told us what identifies us as His follower is the way we love. Not just any kind of love but loving the way Jesus loved us. The way that Jesus modelled love.

Today I want to start by pointing out something we all know. This is true for you regardless if you’re a Christian or not.

The trajectory of our life is not determined by our heart

The direction our life is moving in is not determined by our hearts, our intentions, or the things we want to happen.

The trajectory of our life is determined by our narrative

It’s by the thoughts we think. We’ve all seen this before. Maybe we’ve never really worded it like this but we recognize it when we see a friend, family member, or someone in our life make bad decision after bad decision. They really become their own worst enemy.

We don’t say, “Man, what’s wrong with their heart”.

We say,

what in the world were they thinking

Why in the world would they think that’s a good idea?

What did they think was going to happen

You may say bless your heart, but even then your really just calling them dumb. So even if you say that you’re still questioning their thoughts.

We all understand that our hearts can want to go in one direction but our minds, our thoughts, our narrative often leads us in a completely different direction.

We’ve seen people think their way into bad decisions but we’ve experienced this.

We’ve experienced life when our thoughts lead us to do things, say things, feel things, and accept things that we never wanted.

That’s why we say things like

I never wanted things to end up this way

I never intended for this to happen

If I would have only know this is how it would have turned out

This is where regret, guilt, and shame grow out of

From looking around one day, or saying something, or making a decision, or making a series of decisions and we realize this is never what I wanted

It’s because it’s not our heart. It’s not our intentions, it’s not where we want to go that determines where we go. It’s our narrative. It’s our thoughts that shape our lives. I’ll say it like this.

The life we live is a direct reflection

Of the thoughts we think

Our life, decisions, and direction is a direct result of our thoughts.

We see this in the very first example of humanity. Adam & Eve

They were not even pursuing perfection, they were experiencing it. They were living is God’s garden and given free reign. You know the story...

Spiritual enemy came and made an accusation — She corrected it — then he planted a seed — they ate the fruit and their eyes were opened — they realized they were naked, made coverings for themselves and Adam immediately regretted his decision.

But look at the power of our thoughts. They were currently experiencing the fullness of what God designed and the enemy came and planted a seed. He planted a thought that was based on a lie.

Is God holding out on me

Is there something more than this

Do I have to look out for myself

We don’t know how long these thoughts were there but what we do see is these thoughts, this narrative that set up shop in her mind eventually turned into action.

Here’s what stood out to me about this this week. Not only will our thoughts lead us to a place we never wanted to be, they’ll also lead us to a place we know we shouldn’t be.

The New International Version Chapter 3

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

She knew exactly what would happen if she made the decision she eventually made. She knew what she was walking towards but the narrative was so controlling that she continued to steps towards it.

So let me ask you, What’s the trajectory your life is on right now?

If you were to take a “thought audit” and examine your thoughts over the last week. Not try to examine the thoughts of someone else. But your thoughts. The dominant narrative in your mind. And if you were to write them all down on a piece of paper, what direction would they be leading you in?

What direction would they be taking your marriage in? Your career? Your self confidence?

If your life is going to move in the direction of your strongest thought, what’s your strongest thought? What’s the thought that keeps popping up? What’s the narrative in your mind?...

I’ll never be good enough

They’ll / He / She will never understand

They’ll never accept me, I’m too different

What’s the point in trying

He’ll never, She’ll never

these people are always...

men...

women just don’t get it

I don’t belong here

This is why this is so important to talk about. Because our life is shaped by our thoughts

We can have a heart completely surrendered to Jesus and a life completely defined by the enemy.

We have to talk about this because the majority of people do not know what to do with or how to control the narrative that is controlling their life.

Paul talks about this and he uses military terminology. Building this scene that our mind is a battlefield. If you are a child of the 80’s you thought love was a battlefield, but no it’s our mind.

Paul is talking about this very thing to the church at Corinth.

The New International Version Chapter 10

3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.

He’s using this illustration of war and battles. Which is interesting because he doesn’t do that very often. And he uses strong verbiage.

Wage - This word means to advance. To initiate to engage. To not sit idly by.

The New International Version Chapter 10

4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds

Weapons - Are not necessarily weapons like swords and shields, but these are seige weaponry. Weapons used to capture and conquer.

Strongholds - Strongholds are fortresses built of stone. They were massive structures that would give you a tactical advantage. They were designed to keep people from moving forward and they would keep prisoners stuck inside.

This is what makes changing our narrative so challenging. Because the things we tell ourself are a direct result of things that are out of our control. We think the way we think because of the things that have happened to us.

Our life experiences

Where we grew up

What happened to us as we were growing up

All these different things that we have no control over begin to shape our thoughts which in turn direct our actions. And they set up these strongholds in our life. These things that have us stuck and keep us from moving forward. This strongholds that determine our action.

The things in our mind that cause us to think the way we think and act the way we act are called neural pathways. It’s these paths that are shaped by the different chemicals our brain produces with every experience we have. This is our bodies natural way of taking care of or protecting itself. These are the things that keep you from touching a hot stove a second time. Your brain is learning without you realizing it’s learning. It’s connecting the dots. Its’ traveling down a path its’ travelled before. Stove = hot = pain = don’t touch

We develop this natural way of living based off of good and bad experiences.

What’s interesting about this is the more your brain travels these paths the more easier they are to take. It’s like walking through tall weeds. The first time you walk that path its’ not the easiest journey, but the more you travel it the more clear the path becomes. And it just keeps doing that until it’s a default. That’s why you have to tell kids not to touch a stove but you don’t have to think about touching the hot stove yourself. You’ve developed a normal behavior based off of life experiences.

This is the same thing Paul is talking about here. A lot of us have have strongholds and just like with Eve they started with a lie. They started with faulty thinking.

I’ll give you an example.

When I was a kid, I’m not sure why I thought this way, but I wanted to be the best. So I my thought process was perform better and be recognized. Perform harder, perform harder. If I messed up I had to correct it. As I continued and that though developed it turned into perform hard and do better to be accepted. To please people. Then it grew into Perform harder and do better to not be rejected. And it grew and grew and today, a common thought in my life is you’re not good enough. You’ll never be good enough. I’m not saying this for any kind of sympathy. I’m simply pointing out that my default today grew from a seed. A single thought. A simple narrative and it turned into a stronghold. Something that I think without even thinking about it. It’s a default.

Paul tells us, we have to attack those. We have to identify and assault these things that are shaping our life. And how do we do it?

The New International Version Chapter 10

5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We demolish arguments -

The thoughts. The ideas. The reasoning. We demolish the very thing that is supporting the stronghold.

And every pretension -

Pretension simply means a claim of doubtful value.

He says we are waging war of flawed conclusions based on false assumptions.

We do this every time amp we up to do something scary.

Like a rollercoaster, or bungee jump. You’re about to get on and your brain says,

“hey!! What are you doing dummy?” “Don’t you remember when you fell out of the bed and how much it hurt. How bad do you think it’s going to hurt when you jump off that little platform, which doesn’t look very sturdy by the way so you may not have to jump; that thing may just break and you’ll fall to the ground. What do you thinks going to happen?

And what do you start doing? We argue with it. We begin chipping way at the false narrative.

OOOh! No, this will be fun

Nope. You’re gonna die.

Nah, that other person just did it. And they walked away fine. Look their smiling.

Well that other person didn’t just eat 4 tacos with extra guacamole. That little bungee is not going to hold you up

There’s this back and forth in our mind and what are we doing? Exactly what Paul is telling the church at Corinth and exactly what he would tell you and me.

We don’t have to accept the thoughts we think. We don’t have to sit idly by and let these narratives shape us and move us in a way we really don’t want to go.

So we take these narratives, these thoughts, these arguments that set themselves up in contrast to what we know about God.

We are to assault any narrative that stands in contrast to what says about

ourselves

the people around us

about the people who aren’t like us

about the people who don’t like us

We wage war against any thought, any life shaping narrative that looks different than what God has revealed about Himself in and through Christ.

We identify it and we take “Captive”.

Taking something captive is to remove freedom. To chain. To restrict movement.

We catch these thoughts and compare it to what God has revealed and any part of that thought that isn’t a reflection of what we know about God we bend it into conformity. We take these thoughts and we control and mold these thoughts into what we’ve seen in Jesus.

Jesus told His disciples, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the father.”

This is why reading and learning about the life of Jesus is so important. It’s our source of truth. The life Jesus lived gives us the perfect picture of not only who God is, but what He thinks about you, the person sitting beside you, and the people you come across. The life Jesus lived showed us what our thoughts should be like in regards to the person who disagrees with us or the person who we don’t get a long with.

Paul is telling us that we are the DJ of our mind. You get to pick the playlist. We don’t have to sit by and accept or buy into the lies our spiritual enemy is telling us.

This is why worship matters. This is what we’re talking about when we say that worship changes things in our life. Because worship is literally the act of correcting our thinking with the truths we know about God. It’s shaping our minds. It’s taking the challenges that we’re facing day after day. We’re gathering the frustrations of the world. We’re rounding up all the doubts and anger, all the disappointment and rejection and we’re shaping those thoughts. We’re taking them captive and rebuilding them to look like the truth revealed in and through Jesus. And suddenly we feel a hope we didn’t feel before. We feel an energy and direction we weren’t sure existed. And we’re ready to move in the direction Jesus is guiding us in.

We’re matching the narrative in our minds with the direction of Jesus.

So, let me ask you,

What’s your narrative?

in your marriage

why you haven’t called your sister or brother

why you haven’t called your mother or father

you’re handling your finances the way you do

are making the choices your making

why you won’t take that next step

won’t move into that mission field

that causes you to post the memes or make the statements you make on social media

What’s the narrative? Does it match and reflect what we see and know about God through the life of Jesus?

Our heart is not what determines the direction of our life and our heart is not what’s determined the direction of our life. It’s our narrative

Does your narrative change at all when you line it up with the values of Jesus?