How to be transformed by the renewing of your mind
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” —Romans 12:2 KJV
What does it mean to be transformed by the renewing of your mind? I think it simply means reminding ourselves what God says about us and what His word instructs us to do and not to do. When we are struggling with sin, we need to remind ourselves what God calls sin, and pray for His Spirit to empower us so we can resist.
But transforming your mind goes much deeper than that. When the enemy attacks us, he attacks our minds—our thoughts. When we are able to recognize this attack and redirect our thoughts from what the enemy is saying to what God says—that is how we transform ourselves and renew our minds. I talked a little about this in my post ‘HOW TO FORGIVE WHAT YOU CAN’T FORGET’. I talked about redirecting your thoughts when the wrong thoughts come creeping in. I recently learned that, in counseling, this is called cognitive behavioral therapy. You are basically training your brain to think a certain way. The way that the Lord designed the brain is fascinating. Over time, things that we learn become natural. It becomes instinct. Our brains just react instantly without thought.
When my son was in Little League, his coach was very big on repetition because repetition creates muscle memory. Muscle memory leads to players correctly catching, throwing, and batting because their bodies have done it so many times that they don’t have to think about it—they just instinctively do it correctly. But muscle memory can work against them if they’ve repetitively done it wrong. It’s difficult to undo and takes a lot of time to retrain those muscles to do things the correct way.
The same goes for our brain and our thought patterns. When you see something, or hear something, or think a thought, and it triggers another string of thoughts which leads to negative emotions, eventually our brain will create a short-cut, and when that thought comes to our mind, the emotion will immediately follow without you needing to spend time dwelling on it. A pattern is developed.
A woman once told me that she grew up hating the color orange because it reminded her of the curtains that were hanging in the bedroom where she was sexually abused as a child by a family member. Every time she saw an object that was bright orange, it triggered all the pain, emotion, and deep hurt that she felt from that experience. Was it the color orange that was actually causing those emotions to erupt? No, it was the fact that her brain had been trained to allow it to.
So what would be the best way to untrain the brain— to teach it to not do this? First off, it wouldn’t be a quick fix. After spending years hating the color orange—years of her brain automatically triggering a painful response at the sight of the color—it would take a long time to stop thinking negatively at the sight of anything orange. My advice in situations like this is to think of something positive. Rather than dwelling on the thought of those orange curtains, deliberately think of how good God is, and that He has the power to heal all of our hurts. Focus on thinking that God created the color orange and painted beautiful things with it like flowers, leaves in the fall, sunsets, etc. It would take a lot of time and effort, but eventually, the brain would start to rewire itself and think about flowers and sunsets rather than those curtains.
We can train our brains to do this in regard to anything. When we are feeling worthless, if we remember that the Bible says we are precious to God, that we are His children, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made—just by simply reminding ourselves of what the Bible says every time those thoughts enter our minds, we can train ourselves to stop thinking negatively.
When your anxiety is on the rise, remind yourself that the Word says to cast your cares on Him because He cares for you. There is no trial you face or negative emotion that can’t be countered with Scripture. Remember, that is how Jesus defeated Satan when He was led into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days. We wage war against the enemy in the same manor. I’m going to link a book Joyce Meyer put together to help people do just that. The book breaks down all our negative emotions into categories and gives us lists of Bible verses to counter those emotions. Check it out and don’t give up. Keep praying for God to help you retrain your thoughts and heal your hurts.
“He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.” —Psalm 147:3
What does it mean to be transformed by the renewing of your mind? I think it simply means reminding ourselves what God says about us and what His word instructs us to do and not to do. When we are struggling with sin, we need to remind ourselves what God calls sin, and pray for His Spirit to empower us so we can resist.
But transforming your mind goes much deeper than that. When the enemy attacks us, he attacks our minds—our thoughts. When we are able to recognize this attack and redirect our thoughts from what the enemy is saying to what God says—that is how we transform ourselves and renew our minds. I talked a little about this in my post ‘HOW TO FORGIVE WHAT YOU CAN’T FORGET’. I talked about redirecting your thoughts when the wrong thoughts come creeping in. I recently learned that, in counseling, this is called cognitive behavioral therapy. You are basically training your brain to think a certain way. The way that the Lord designed the brain is fascinating. Over time, things that we learn become natural. It becomes instinct. Our brains just react instantly without thought.
When my son was in Little League, his coach was very big on repetition because repetition creates muscle memory. Muscle memory leads to players correctly catching, throwing, and batting because their bodies have done it so many times that they don’t have to think about it—they just instinctively do it correctly. But muscle memory can work against them if they’ve repetitively done it wrong. It’s difficult to undo and takes a lot of time to retrain those muscles to do things the correct way.
The same goes for our brain and our thought patterns. When you see something, or hear something, or think a thought, and it triggers another string of thoughts which leads to negative emotions, eventually our brain will create a short-cut, and when that thought comes to our mind, the emotion will immediately follow without you needing to spend time dwelling on it. A pattern is developed.
A woman once told me that she grew up hating the color orange because it reminded her of the curtains that were hanging in the bedroom where she was sexually abused as a child by a family member. Every time she saw an object that was bright orange, it triggered all the pain, emotion, and deep hurt that she felt from that experience. Was it the color orange that was actually causing those emotions to erupt? No, it was the fact that her brain had been trained to allow it to.
So what would be the best way to untrain the brain— to teach it to not do this? First off, it wouldn’t be a quick fix. After spending years hating the color orange—years of her brain automatically triggering a painful response at the sight of the color—it would take a long time to stop thinking negatively at the sight of anything orange. My advice in situations like this is to think of something positive. Rather than dwelling on the thought of those orange curtains, deliberately think of how good God is, and that He has the power to heal all of our hurts. Focus on thinking that God created the color orange and painted beautiful things with it like flowers, leaves in the fall, sunsets, etc. It would take a lot of time and effort, but eventually, the brain would start to rewire itself and think about flowers and sunsets rather than those curtains.
We can train our brains to do this in regard to anything. When we are feeling worthless, if we remember that the Bible says we are precious to God, that we are His children, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made—just by simply reminding ourselves of what the Bible says every time those thoughts enter our minds, we can train ourselves to stop thinking negatively.
When your anxiety is on the rise, remind yourself that the Word says to cast your cares on Him because He cares for you. There is no trial you face or negative emotion that can’t be countered with Scripture. Remember, that is how Jesus defeated Satan when He was led into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days. We wage war against the enemy in the same manor. I’m going to link a book Joyce Meyer put together to help people do just that. The book breaks down all our negative emotions into categories and gives us lists of Bible verses to counter those emotions. Check it out and don’t give up. Keep praying for God to help you retrain your thoughts and heal your hurts.
“He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.” —Psalm 147:3
