Breaking cycles is like fighting a battle. It’s a battle for your heart, mind, present, and, mostly, your future. You might be thinking, “Duh, I’m lying bruised and bleeding on the field and every time I get up, I get knocked down.”
Yes. It feels like that. It feels like loss and after loss. And it feels like you carry the losing banner everywhere you go.
Breaking cycles and patterns of thought sometimes feels like you lose more than you win because it’s a series of small skirmishes amidst decisive battles.
But we’re not alone. We might be surrounded by the enemies of our pasts or our own imaginations, but God says he prepares a table, a feast for us, in the midst of our enemies. He invites us to rest and in the respite we’re given the strength to stand and fight again.
The Psalmist describes God as a warrior riding the clouds in response to your cry. Psalm 18.
The breaking cycles weapons are not a pick yourself up by your bootstraps and keep a stiff upper lip and all that rot. It’s so much more.
Our weapons are the power of a heart fixed on the power of God. They’re spiritual weapons that enable you to tear down any thought, imagination, or mind-stronghold so that God’s truth can penetrate your heart.
The cycles and negative thought patterns begin before we’re even aware of what’s happening in our minds. It’s called a cycle because it’s become an automatic response. This is why one of the breaking cycle steps involve awareness of what’s in our minds. One way to interrupt the patterns of thoughts is by using your spiritual weapons to tear down thoughts and imaginings that don’t line up with God’s truth.
How do we do this?
We pray scripture.
We pray:
“In Jesus name, I tear down the pride that’s creating this stronghold.”
Or:
“According to Jesus’ power, I tear down the idea that someone is spreading rumors about me.”
Listen, we walk and live in the flesh. We live in this world. We still have the effects of our past in our present. Yet, we’re also not of this world. This world is not our home, but this is where we live.
What would happen if we were to apply the benefits of being a citizen of heaven to our life in this world?
Wouldn’t we reach for heavenly weapons rather than for our usual way of dealing with problems that plague our minds?
Couldn’t we share the power of God with others by applying the power of God to our own minds and praying for other’s who are locked into patterns of thought that keep them trapped in strongholds?
“For though we walk in the flesh (driven by our natural responses), we are not waging war according to the flesh (self-preservation). For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh (revenge, back-biting, vindication), but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (parentheses, my addition)
Jesus is our High Priest. He intercedes for us. And it’s because of him that God sees us as holy and righteous and it’s because of him that we can go directly to God and receive the grace that we need in the exact moment we need it. Hebrews 4:12-16.
There is a light that flows out like a river from God. He invites you to step into it, arms thrown back, and let that light overtake every single aspect of your mind and heart. It’s in that position where strongholds tumble.
It’s a battle of which you’re assured victory. You might feel as though you’re losing more than you’re winning, but you win when you’re faithful. I heard a best-selling author assert that your successes are built on your failures, but I proclaim that your successes are built on faithfulness.
It’s your faithfulness in trusting God and his faithfulness in directing every one of your steps while you’re breaking cycles.
The Takeaway
Prepare your heart for the battle by studying the Armor of God. I recommend Priscilla Shirer’s Armor of God study.
Think of a situation that sets your mind to setting up strongholds because of false imaginations and then pray 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. Out loud. And name what’s keeping you bound. Speak to it in Jesus’ name.
Take time to rest in God’s abundant love for you. That’s where you find your strength to stand and fight the battle.
It’s a commodity that seems to cost us more than it gives back. But rest is vital for our well-being. It shouldn’t induce guilt or shame, and yet, how many of us struggle with it?
There are times when I need a nap in the middle of the day, and if I’m honest, sometimes by 9am. I struggle to pause my activity so I can close my eyes for ten minutes. But when I don’t, I turn into scary Jessica. That’s the version of me that shows her teeth and and growls at anyone who comes near, including innocent laundry baskets and errant socks.
We need physical rest, but we also need spiritual and emotional rest as well. We need stillness.
Our bodies are still, and our minds are at rest. We’re given a break from the constant bombardment from noise, and our senses are soothed by the sight of lapping waters, the scent of earth and leaves, and the cooing of mourning doves.
God’s word is filled with visions of stillness. He leads you besides still waters so that your soul finds restoration. And he calls us to be still and wait for him to lead. Would that we could be as restful in the midst of our life’s storms as Jesus was when he napped in the boat during the violent storm on the Galilee Sea.
Still.
Breathe deep.
Embrace the quiet.
Stilling our soul is vital to breaking cycles.
For one, it enables us to learn to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us. God knows our tendency to strive in our own strength, and so he gives us the gift of stillness so that we learn to wait for him.
Secondly, stillness gives us the opportunity to practice the presence of God. God’s presence doesn’t ebb and flow, but our awareness of it does. Stilling our soul gives us the opportunity to develop that awareness.
But what does this stillness look like?
It can be meditating on a passage of scripture that gives you hope or comfort or turning on worship music that sings of God’s attributes and character. And then turn those words into your own worship. Laying prostrate on the floor is an act of humility that reminds our soul that God is God and we are not.
You could take a leisurely stroll and study the leaves on the maple tree, the flowers that bloom or the way the goldfinch flits and flutters to its nest. Maybe you could lay on the grass, gaze at the clouds, and envision God riding to your rescue.
God loves you and longs for relationship with you that is filled with mutual enjoyment.
Yes, God teaches us in the ways of right living and he gently and tenderly convicts us when we travel off course. But he also enjoys us. He enjoys our quirks and interests because he gives them to us.
Enjoy him. Enjoy his kindness, sweetness, mercy, and grace. He is a good, good God and his heart is so good towards you.
He transforms you one step in one cycle at the time, but not every encounter with God will be a teaching encounter. There will be times when he removes the blinders off your eyes, and you will see clearly and change will overtake you.
Then, God graciously let’s those revelations take root in your heart, which means that you won’t be showed something new to work on every time you open your Bible. It’s in those moments when you read the Bible, worship him, and still your heart before him that you learn to enjoy him.
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10
Breaking cycles requires a strong heart. Sometimes it seems impossible and we wonder if the effort is worth it. That’s why this step of rest cannot be skipped or glossed over.
Taking time to rest in God’s presence is what encourages our heart and gives us strength to keep walking the righteous-living, cycle-breaking road.
The Takeaway
Take time to quiet your soul and rest in God’s presence.
If thoughts are good, it’s wonderful. Thoughts about the effervescent giggle of a child who found a lost lovey or the way the sunlight made you glow as you basked in it’s warmth bring comfort and encouragement.
But when those thoughts damage trust and hope, they’re like knives filleting hearts.
We cannot comprehend the power behind our thoughts until we put them into words, and we see the effect they have on us and those around us.
The smile that radiates from someone when they receive affirming words, fills our hearts as well.
And the ache that leaks out of the eyes of someone who has had words stabbed into their heart feels like shards of glass to our hearts as well.
To control our speech, we become stingy with our words, doling them out here and there, raising the bar of exception higher and higher until we’re impossible to please.
Or we become self-protectant, doubting the goodness of someone’s words or validating our self-protection when hurtful words come our way.
Not giving life to the ugly by being quiet is one step towards using our words for good. But even if we are still thinking them, there will come a time when the pressure of life causes those words to spillover. And what a mess.
In the first week of college, I made a mess with my fellow college students. Let’s just say first impressions are vital and recovering from a bad first impression is nearly impossible. It takes heroic effort and deliberate repeated actions to prove that the bad first impression was the wrong first impression.
I made a terrible first impression. Embarrassingly so. A young man threw his fork, which had just been in his mouth, across the table and into my cottage cheese and yogurt. I delivered a sharp and stinging lecture on germs and cleanliness. In the process, I indicated that the person who threw the fork was just as disgusting as the germs in their mouth and I shamed them.
I shamed myself by my words.
Those words welled up like a volcano and I couldn’t stop them like I had in the past. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” was my mantra growing up. But it failed me in this instance.
The combination of moving to a new town, adjusting to a new school, and dealing with shattering the illegal haircutting business of the Dorm Mother created pressure that built into the “Don’t Throw the Fork That’s Just Been in Your Mouth into My Food” scathing speech. I cringe at the memory.
I learn from it too. I understand that preventing thoughts from turning into words isn’t effective. It’s pretty much exhausting and induces a “try, fail, beat oneself up” cycle. That cycle does not lead to lasting, heartfelt, transformation that believers in Christ exhibit as a new creation.
“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.” 2 Corinthians 10:5
One of the steps of breaking negative cycles is capturing our thoughts. The next step is making our thoughts obedient to Christ.
Awareness of our thoughts leads to capturing our thoughts.
Then we bring them into obedience to Christ.
How? By flipping the script.
Flipping the script involves taking the negative thoughts and looking at it upside down.
God’s wisdom is not the world’s wisdom. God’s wisdom doesn’t turn to the latest “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” philosophy or turn to blaming other’s for your problems. God’s wisdom is pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. (James 3:17)
I rail against the injustice about the lack of healing in my friend’s body and I shake my clenched fist at the heavens. I tell God exactly what I feel, all the hurt and the anger, and then I declare to myself that God has been my hope and my confidence since my youth (Psalm 71:5).
At times I struggle in relationships and find my mind filled with imaginary conversations putting so-and-so in their place, I am completely honest with God with my frustrations and disappointments. But then I flip the script and remind myself that God is sovereign, and his ways are higher than mine.
When I feel surrounded by darkness and cannot find my way, I hurl my confusion at God and he hears me because he doesn’t turn me away. But then I turn that thought around by reminding myself that God’s light and truth will guide me. (Psalm 43:3)
Flipping the script takes guarding our mouth to a whole new level because we’re renewing our thoughts by making them obedient to Christ. Rather than being held hostage to a cycle of “try, fail, beat oneself up,” we’re set free because our thoughts are filled with the truths found in God’s word.
Know his word. Capture thoughts and flip the script.
