4 minute read 
by Bethany Rees

My wonderful adventures in parenting often lead me to questions like “what were they thinking?” 

For example, here recently my two teenagers and their teenage cousins decided to have a hot pepper challenge in my kitchen with the peppers I had grown in the garden. 

Many laughs were had, and many videos were made of each participant. Where I entered the picture was when my precious blood relatives were spewing milk all over my stove, wall, and floor. 

Staring at the huge mess of milk, and tears on every face from the burning tongues in their mouths, I asked “what are you thinking?”

But they weren’t thinking, they were just doing. And their “just doing,” made a huge mess (that they cleaned up). 

Teenagers are so susceptible to following the crowd.  Their school of thought usually rides the waves of not thinking at all, but doing what is trending so they fit in…even if it burns them and makes a mess.

But hey, teenagers don’t have the fully developed frontal lobe in the brain to help them with logical thinking and executive functioning. Therefore, I forgive them…they still have consequences, but I forgive them nonetheless. 

Adults on the other hand, do have fully developed frontal lobes to use logic, but unfortunately we aren’t that much better than teenagers. 

Oh sure, adults think before they do…but they can get so attached to a thought they can’t see anything else. 

Like teenagers, once we give in to the school of thought around us, we can become subject to destructive behaviors. 

Schools of thought are more than just categorized paradigms of how we see and think about the world. They can create deep chasms that keep us in our own mental torment of stress and anxiety or they can keep us from being willing to listen to or seek to understand anyone else who has a thought different than us (i.e. politics and presidential elections). 

Our thoughts are often the drivers of how we experience life because they affect our feelings, beliefs, behaviors, habits, and culture.

Our thoughts quickly lead to our feelings. And our feelings promote our actions.

Thoughts > Emotions >Actions

When we get so wrapped up in our school of thought, we often forfeit our ability to “slow our roll” and can:

1. drive everyone crazy with our big emotions and overreactions,
2. become closed-minded and hard to work with, or 
3. are always overwhelmed and anxious

Let me guess, after reading those three reactions, someone specific popped into your mind. 

How do I know? Because sadly, those kinds of people exist everywhere…in our families, at work, at children’s ball games 😳…and within ourselves. 

The people that are so caught up in their school of thought don’t know how to “slow their roll” in order to adjust their thinking.

Therefore they are the ones that pop off at the mouth to cause even more conflict and drama. They are the ones that are overly emotional. They are the ones that lose respect and trust.  And they are the ones that react instead of respond.

So as we think about this “back to school season,” I ask you to consider what schools of thought you are enrolling in? 

Are you enrolling in the school of anxiety? The school of depression? The school of anger? The school of stress? The school of victimization? The school of selfishness? The school of politics? 

There’s only one way to break free from schools of thought that lead to destructive behavior and that is to take them captive to obey Christ. 

“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” ~ 2 Corinthians 10:5

Before your thoughts develop into feelings and actions, pray and ask for help to take them captive to Christ first and then you'll find true freedom.

Know Better. Do Better. Live Better. Capture Your Thoughts.

Rocks before Sand!

Scripture: 

“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” ~ 2 Corinthians 10:5

Theme Song: 

Take Captive Every Thought

References Used:

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.