Mental Health and the Struggle for Peace in Your Mind

Do you feel overwhelmed with negative thoughts and feelings? “What’s the point? I’m rubbish at everything. Everyone hates me. I’m disgusting.”

Many people feel their mind is swamped with fear, personal insecurity, doubt and self-loathing. Confronting these negative thought patterns and overcoming them is the battle of the mind. God is on your side.

To begin, we must understand who our enemy is and what tactics he uses in this struggle for our mental health. In John 8:44, Jesus explains Satan is real and he is the father of all lies. He is the most effective liar in the world. Satan is not a cartoon character but an evil spirit. He is a fallen angel and he bombards our mind with negative thoughts.

He lies about our self-worth; he tells us we are ugly, stupid, foolish and a failure. He tells us God hates us and tries to convince our prayers and Bible readings are pointless.

As the most effective liar in history, our enemy knows how to overload our mind with negative thoughts, doubts, fears and suspicions. Examples of these negative thought patterns are: “God hates you!” “You’re so sinful; God will never answer your prayers!” “You are worthless” and, “You are so ugly.”

The most deceptive part of the devil’s plan in the mind’s battle is to make it appear these thoughts are ‘our own’ and to disguise the fact he has ‘dropped them’ into our mind.

The Bible says we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). The first step to defeating Satan is to recognise, “These are not my thoughts, this is an enemy attack,” followed by a Scriptural confession of faith, “I have the mind of Christ. I will live in God’s victory. I reject these lies in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

By Paul Backholer. Find out about Paul’s books here.