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For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Kaley Olson: Well, hello friends, and thanks for tuning in to the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast, where we share biblical truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kaley Olson, and I'm here today with my co-host, Ellen Adkins. Hey, Ellen.
Ellen Adkins: Hey, Kaley.
Kaley Olson: What are we talking about today?
Ellen Adkins: Oh my goodness. Today, we have a very special guest. We have Max Lucado on the podcast. And we are going to hear from him talking all about how to take our thoughts captive. And this, I think, was such a deeply practical episode in which he goes through a toolkit for how we can actually take our thoughts captive. And so you're really going to love it. I enjoyed it. I think you did too.
Kaley Olson: I enjoyed it. And here's what I will say as well. I think sometimes like whenever we release a podcast episode. It's like, take your thoughts captive. You go, do I really need to hear this again? And my answer to you is yes, you do. Because thoughts are like weeds and weeds grow all the time. Every year, you're gonna have to pull them out. Like weeds,
No one has a perfect yard and that's physically speaking, but your mind is constantly full of them. And so I think friends, we need constant reminders to really take those thoughts captive. And so Max is gonna share some things that are fresh and insightful for you today. We're so excited for you to hear it.
But before we let you listen to today's episode, we wanted to let you know about a few resources that pair ironically well with today's topic that you'll wanna access right after this episode. First, we created a free downloadable resource called I'll Go First, a conversation for friends who want a healthier mindset. I love that this resource exists because sometimes we need a friend to ask more than just, hey, how are you? And sometimes we need to be the one that says, hey, I'll go first.
Whether you're struggling with your thoughts or you are a friend walking with someone who is struggling, we hope that this conversation guide will give you somewhere to begin fighting those toxic thoughts and working towards healthier mindsets together. We've
Link to that for you in the show notes below. So just download it. It's absolutely free. Next, there's a Therapy and Theology episode with counselor Rebecca Maxwell titled Tools to Fight Anxiety and Better Your Mental Health that we think you will love. So go ahead and be ready to hit the play button after you listen to this episode.
Ellen Adkins: All right, friends, that is enough from us. Go listen to today's episode.
Kaley Olson: Well, friends, I'm so excited to welcome again one of our favorite listeners guests on the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast. We've got our friend Max Lucado on the show today. Welcome, Max. How are you?
Max Lucado: Oh, I'm great. I'm great. And just enjoying this season of the year, excited about the cooler weather and terrific opportunity to talk with the two of you. It's a great privilege.
Kaley Olson: Oh, we are always so honored to have you on. And Max, some one thing that we gals over here at Proverbs 31 constantly talk about is what's on our minds. I mean, we've got a lot going on in our lives to keep our thoughts swirling. There's our job job, like our Proverbs 31 job job. And then there's our job outside of our job. Like I call Proverbs my nine to five and then I have my five to nine because I'm a mom, you know?
And I've learned there's really no shutting off the brain when it comes to the mental load we all carry. Ellen, would you agree?
Ellen Adkins: Oh, I would completely agree.
Kaley Olson: So much. The mental load term is definitely used around here. And so Max, I'm really excited that you're here today because you're gonna speak with us about taming our thoughts. And I know that this is a message that we need and our audience needs to hear. So why don't you take it away?
Max Lucado: Well, thank you. You're not alone. I mean, the fact of the matter is that we have about 70,000 thoughts a day. According to the Cleveland Clinic, your brain is a three-pound computer that processes 70,000 thoughts a day. That's a lot. And these are thoughts you hear. These are thoughts you ponder. They wake you up. They refuse to shut off when you try to sleep. And the truth is, we're the sum of them.
Positive thoughts will generate positive outcomes, and negative thoughts will activate negative behavior. And behind every angry outburst, there's an angry belief. And behind every kind gesture, there's a kind notion. We are what we think. I think that's why Romans chapter 12 and verse 2 deserves to be highlighted twice
The apostle Paul said, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. There's something about the Lord's work in our lives that changes the way we think. This is a great word, by the way, transform. It's the same word from which we get the noun metamorphosis. I didn't pay a lot of attention to in middle school science class. But I do recall that process of turning a caterpillar into a butterfly, metamorphosis, that squirmy, furry worm was turned into a winged, colorful, high-flying butterfly. Well, this is what God promises to do with us. And I find this so encouraging because so many of us battle with our thoughts and
Thoughts of anxiety, thoughts of dread, thoughts of guilt, thoughts of sadness. Learning to tame our thoughts is absolutely essential. And God gives us tools, and these tools make a huge difference.
I've condensed these tools down into three practical tools that really work for me. And I've put them to use in conversations, whether formal counseling or hallway chit chats for decades. And I think they're helpful, just a toolkit. So I'd like to use the minutes that you've given me to review these three tools, these three thought management tools.
The first one is this, practice picky thinking. Practice picky thinking. Be a selective thinker. Many of us try to be selective eaters, but we must also be selective thinkers. In other words, just because you have a thought, you don't have to think it.
The passage that comes to mind in this topic regarding this tool is a familiar one from the book of 2 Corinthians, and it's chapter 10, beginning in verse 3.
Again, that's 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 5. To read that scripture would make a person think, am I reading the Bible or a combat manual? Because Paul talks about the weapons we use, the world's weapons, God's weapons, destroy strongholds, pull down obstacles. This feels like a battle, and it is that.
There is a high stakes contest taking place today for the health of our minds. And at issue are the strongholds that have a stronghold in your life.
You know, a stronghold can have two meanings. It can refer to a prison. It keeps people in. It can also be a fortress that keeps people out. And unmanaged thoughts do both. They trap us in our heads and they cause us to defy outside assistance. And so the admonition of Paul is to take them captive. To take them captive. We literally march them as we would a POW into the presence of Christ. This is indeed a military term in Greek. It literally means to poke a spear against the spine of our enemy.
We take charge. This might seem like an elementary tool to most people, but to some people, it's a brand new idea. They just assume that because they have a thought, they have to give in to that thought. That's not the case. So tool number one, practice picky thinking. Tool number two,
Identify UFOs. Now, I'm not talking about the UFO of outer space, but I am talking about the UFO of thought progression. It goes like this. Untruths lead to false narratives that prompt overreactions. UFO, untruth, false narrative, overreactions. You see, the devil always traffics in an untruth.
If untruth is liquor, he's the bootlegger. I mean, he's barely onto the pages of Scripture, and he's telling Eve a lie. He said, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? And when Eve explained that they could eat from any tree except one, lest they die, Satan lied to her. He just said, you will not die.
You will not die. And he goes on to fabricate a teaching that convinced her. He was a liar. That's what we need to understand every day, that the devil comes with lies. He starts with an untruth. This untruth leads to a false narrative. Now, a narrative is the way we see ourselves and what we say to ourselves.
Maybe you know someone who seems incurably irritable, cranky, or melancholy. Well, I would bet a buck that that person has this narrative turning in their brain, just churning out messages like, I'm a loser, I screwed up again, it's me against the world. According to the Cleveland Clinic's wellness program, 80% of our thoughts are negative.
I find that amazing that gloom outpaces happiness to the ratio of five to one. In other words, most people beat themselves up five times for every one time that they pat themselves on the back. You see, the problem begins with an untruth, with a lie.
Nobody loves me or I'll never get this problem fixed or I'm on the outside looking in. Well, that may be how you feel, but it's not the truth. But that untruth leads to a false narrative. It's what you say to yourself. It's how you see yourself. And in time, the untruth leads to a false narrative that results in an overreaction, an outburst, an episode of addictive behavior.
A season of severe sadness. Now, to be clear, overreactions make sense. If I trigger your unseen emotional wound, you might react in a manner that's disproportionate to my action. Overreactions have their reasons, but they also have their consequences. They can trap us in a stronghold.
So tool number two is learn to identify the UFO, the untruth that leads to a false narrative that prompts an overreaction. Do you find yourself just one overreaction after another? If so, what is the untruth that you are considering? That's tool number two, identify the UFOs. And then the third tool, and I'll be done, uproot and replant, uproot and replant. You know, when I was a 12 year old, I was too young to get a real summer job, but my dad said, I'm going to put you in charge of the lawn, getting the grass burrs out of the lawn. Now I grew up in West Texas, grass burrs are
Definitely in West Texas. They're not everywhere in the world, so let me tell you what they are. A grass burr can grow to be about six to eight inches tall, and it's a cluster of stickers at the top of a stalk. My brother and I used to tomahawk them at each other, such loving siblings. Grass burrs are not fun. Pity the poor outfielder who falls in a patch of them or barefoot kid who runs over a bunch. So dad wanted me to get all the grass burrs out of the lawn. So I cranked up the lawnmower. I cut them down. I thought I had a great job. Yet days later, when the grass returned, guess what returned with them? Grass burrs. So dad had to give me more detailed instructions.
He took a garden spade. He got down on his knees. He dug up a weed, then another, then another, until he had a small stack of extracted grass burrs ready to be thrown out. You got to pull them out, Max. I said, what? He said, pull them out, each one, one by one. And so we spent a weekend pulling the weeds. And in time, but it took work, we had a grass burr-free lawn.
Now your mind is like that lawn.
And your toxic thoughts are those graspers. And you can mow them down. You can just pretend they're not there. You can try to put yourself in a good mood. But God has a better plan. He wants you to yank them out by the roots. My dad gave me a garden spade. Your heavenly father gives you his word. He invites you to treat the lies of hell, those untruths, to treat them with the words of heaven.
Do you remember how Satan assaulted Jesus in the wilderness? If you are the son of God, then, and he gave him three different challenges. He told him to prove it.
Jesus gave him no quarter. He took each thought captive. He treated each untruth with scripture. There were three temptations, and then there were three declarations. It is written, it is written, it is written. I think this is interesting. There's no razzle dazzle. There's no angelic rescue, no Messiah only miracles. Jesus just quoted the Bible. Now, if his weapon of choice was scripture,
Shouldn't ours be the same?
You know, the Eastern concept of meditation tells us to empty our mind, and that is a helpful exercise, but I would say an empty mind is not a tamed mind. Biblical meditation goes further. Scripture defines meditation as the act of filling the mind. Biblical meditation savors and tastes and sees God's goodness through his word.
So this is our tame your thoughts toolkit. First, practice picky thinking just because you have a thought. You don't have to think it. Identify UFOs. An untruth leads to a false narrative that creates an overreaction. And then uproot and replant. Rather than let that untruth grow, give that lie a tug and replace it with God's truth. It might go something like this, and I'll be done.
An uninvited thought of worry wanders into the living room of your brain and Freddie Brett plops himself down on your couch and begins to spout woes and I'll never get a promotion. My life will never know love. The mark on my skin is untreatable, incurable melanoma. Now, the old you would have nodded, would have agreed, would have assumed the worst. You've become a master at catastrophizing and envisioning the worst case scenario. You would have inhaled this mold of dread and trepidation. But there's a new you.
You're being transformed by the renewal of your mind. And you've learned what the scripture says about taking thoughts captive, about thought progression, UFOs, about uprooting and replanting. So you put it to work.
You grab that anxious thought by the neck and march him into the presence of the Prince of Peace. And you say, Jesus, do I need to give in to this thought of anxiety? And Jesus says, only if he'll bow before my authority. And Freddie Fret says, I'll never do that. And Jesus says, throw him out.
And you do. You uproot thoughts of fear. You replace them with any number of scriptures. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
He allows you through the power of these scriptures to begin to think in a way that honors him. So those are the three thought management tools, and they can be put to use immediately over any circumstance. One final thought about thoughts. God thinks about you all the time.
We have a lot of thoughts, I know, but did you know the scripture in Psalm 139 says, God is always thinking about us. The psalmist wrote, you saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book, how precious it is, Lord to realize that you are thinking about me constantly. I can't even count how many times a day your thoughts turn toward me. When I awaken in the morning, you are still thinking of me. Friend, God never stops thinking about you. And he thinks not thoughts of condemnation and judgment, but thoughts of love and adoration. And he will turn those 70,000 thoughts that you have every day into 70,000 opportunities for your day to be better and your life to be happier.
Kaley Olson: Max, that's such a good reminder. I kept thinking about something that Lysa TerKeurst says, and she phrases it, planning funerals before they happen. So I feel like we all kind of have our different of responding to thoughts. There's the, what did you call them? Freddy fret. And then, you know, like planning funerals and things like that. And just how tempted we are to go to the negative. And I had no idea that 80% of our thoughts were negative. And I was like, well, it is, but it kind of shakes out though. Especially, you know, whenever today's culture, we're so isolated, even in our work, a lot of us work from home. And so I think the more you're by yourself, you, are more alone with your thoughts and you don't have a lot of opportunity to process them. So Max, I have a question for you and it was about something that you said kind of at the very beginning of your teaching. And so I'm gonna repeat the quote. You said, behind every angry outburst, there's an angry belief. And you in the second tool in your toolkit kind of address this in identifying UFOs and how it leads to overreactions. And I think that that's really helpful personally for people. Like if I could easily understand catch myself when I'm having an angry outburst. I could go, okay, Kaley, something's not right. But what I want to ask you about, Max, is how do we as believers act with compassion towards those who outburst angrily towards us? Maybe even based on
how well we know them. Like maybe they're like a really good coworker, maybe they're like a good friend or a spouse. What would you recommend in that situation? Say you are being angrily, that's the wrong way. You were being the recipient of an angry outburst. How do you maybe respond to that person with compassion? Rather than kind of just letting it go. Can you talk about that?
Max Lucado: Yeah. And that is a terrific question. It's a very powerful question. And sometimes the nature of the relationship will define to what degree and how we might react. But first,
Do your goal in any relationship is to deal less with the overreaction and more with the cause of it. Deal less with the overreaction and more with the cause. Now, it's easy for me to say that, but when your sister is yelling at you or somebody you like is disrespecting you, it's difficult to set aside that overreaction.
To the degree that you can, however, you will be able to begin to process what's going on. The goal is to ask the question, how long have you been feeling like this? Or where did that come from? Or how old is that anger? As a pastor, I have really an open invitation to ask questions like that.
It's a bit more challenging when the interaction is with, you know, a sibling or a neighbor or a friend or a coworker. But your goal is there. If you can, you know, take the high road and not get into this world of my overreaction, yelling at your overreaction. But if you can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, ask some kind of question. Is there something behind this?
Is there something going on here that I need to know? You know, if you can probe just a little bit, I think you'll be surprised how quickly... People will either shut down or they'll open up. That's all you can do, right? Yeah. And I think you'll be surprised how many open up.
Kaley Olson: Yeah, I love that. I think too, I mean, anger is sin, you know, and the Bible talks about how we as believers are to address sin in others in a very loving way. But I think that it's really hard and it can come across as attacking. But I think sometimes it's helpful to answer a question, like answer a question with a question, like you said, rather than responding to their overreaction, which almost just feeds it.
give them something to ponder, but also it shows curiosity and genuine love in you as their, whether it's your spouse or your coworker or sibling. I love that. I love that. Ellen, what are you thinking? What questions do you have?
Ellen Adkins: Oh, it's so interesting, Kaley, because you mentioned how so often we live in isolation. And I think a lot of these new negative thought patterns really breed in isolation. Like they just grow. And I know for myself, like when I'm feeling really swirly, it's usually when I haven't talked to somebody about how I'm feeling. And so Max, I'm just curious as,
I see these different steps in this toolkit. How would you recommend somebody who to begin like opening themselves up to other people and inviting others into this process of learning how to take your thoughts captive? Because I know for myself, sometimes I'm not able to, I just don't have it in me to be able to identify what's going on. But close friends or even family are able to say, hey, I think you're believing something that's not true. And I know I've seen a lot of fruit in my life
opening myself to other people and having them speak into those thoughts. But maybe somebody is just beginning that process and overwhelmed thinking about how can I even start to invite others into this?
Max Lucado: That's good. Phenomenal, phenomenal question. Really is. One idea is most of us could use a little therapy.
We really could. You know, if it's nothing more than, hey, pastor, can I come by the office and just have a chat or somebody on the staff and just kind of share your story and get a mental checkup? It could be even a little more advanced with a professional counselor or a therapist and
And there's nothing wrong with that. There's people, God has equipped certain people with the phenomenal skill to objectively sort through all the junk in our lives and help us to make sense out of it.
Their assignment is to listen to our story and help us correct how we are misliving or inappropriately living or assuming our story. So you might find it helpful to seek some professional help. And by the way, we do live in a day where that type of help is more commonplace.
readily available than ever. You don't have to leave your house, although I think it's better to be in the office of a counselor. But if you can't, you can do it in a Zoom call.
The other answer to that question would be those closest to you. In this case, could be your spouse. If your kids are older, you could involve them. Maybe your parents or your best friends. You could have a... You might prepare some smelling salts because they'll probably faint when you do this. But if you were to say to them, let's say you're talking to your best friend, say, you know,
You know, I have a tendency to just snap, to just snap, to just be angry. And I don't like it. And I'm trying to figure out where it comes from. And I'm taking notes on myself. Have you ever observed why I do this? And, man, you talk about it an invitation of somebody to speak into your life and to give you counsel, that would be very, very helpful. A good friend of mine is a golf instructor, and he always says, Max, you cannot see your own golf swing. And I think that's true in all of our lives. We cannot see golf.
what we're doing. And it helps to invite a close one into our life to help us sort out why we're behaving the way we are.
Kaley Olson: Yeah. Oh, that's so good. It reminds me about how in the Bible it said God wants to give us the desires of our heart. And I just feel like
He desires for us to think good thoughts and He will, like that's a prayer that I feel like God would delight in answering is when you say, "God, can you give me somebody who will show me my golf swing?" Proverbially, you know, show me the things that I am missing in myself. I'm like, gosh, He would love to answer that prayer for you through a friend, through a coworker, through a spouse. And I feel like that's such a way to deepen
a relationship with someone and just go from beyond quick chit chat type of coffee. But man, I just feel like that could set the stage for some deep friendships, which just speaks to the loneliness and isolation. So Max, this is so much more than just taming your thoughts. I think it's an invitation really to allow God's word to really get in us, but also to open ourselves up to people instead of pretending like everything is okay. We all know that it's not.
but what an opportunity it is to just be real and be human with others and then in turn, see what happens. So I'm so grateful that you took the time to come on the show with us today, Max. And I wanna encourage our listeners to grab your book. It's called Tame Your Thoughts and it's available wherever you'd like to purchase your books, but we've made it easy for you and have linked it in the show notes. The book,
I think, Max, if I'm not mistaken, it has lots more information on the toolkit and just really is a resource for people to be able to dive deeper into maybe why they're thinking the thoughts they're thinking. So I want to encourage you guys, grab that resource. We also...
I have a couple more things from Proverbs 31 we wanna mention first is a therapy and theology episode with counselor Rebecca Maxwell titled Tools to Fight Anxiety and Better Your Mental Health. You can access that on the Therapy and Theology podcast or our YouTube channel. And I love that Max, you mentioned going to see a counselor and that's exactly why we have the Therapy and Theology podcast. So friends go ahead and hit play on that link in the show notes below that you can listen to that episode right after this. And then lastly, we created a free resource for you called iHeartRadio.
I'll Go First, a conversation for friends who want a healthier mindset. And so if you listen to this conversation towards the end, when Ellen asked that question about, hey, how do I process this with a friend? You can download this free resource using the link in our show notes below, and that will give you some prompts for how to approach that conversation with friends. So all really good stuff. And guys, I just wanna tell you, we don't really plan this.
the resources with exactly what our guests are gonna say. And so we had no idea, Max, that you were gonna mention counseling and we had no idea that you, but we were gonna talk about how to open up with friends. And so I think it's really encouraging how the Lord is at work. And so if you're listening to this and need a reminder that God really is in all the details, here it is for you, friends. All right, that is all for today. Thank you, Max, at Proverbs 31 Ministries. We believe when you know the truth and live the truth it changes everything.