Jesus Wants to be the Boss of Your Thoughts!

Claire Black: This is True Girl, a podcast for girls and their moms. Together, we’ll explore God’s Truth for us one drive at a time. Buckle up! You’re about to grow closer to each other and closer to Jesus!

We’re heading back into the True Girl Truth Lab.

Last week, we learned two steps to overcome lies. If you missed that, go back and listen to episode 4. Today, we’ll hear step 3. Here’s the author of Lies Girls Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free, Dannah Gresh, and Staci Rudolph is with her. This episode is called “Jesus Wants to Be the Boss of Your Thoughts.”

Dannah Gresh: Cat! . . . Saturday! . . . Fifty! . . . Oregano!

Staci Rudolph: What in the world? What is she yellin’ about? Dannah, why are you shoutin’ out all that random stuff?

Dannah: Oh, Family Feud is on! They’re doing the fast money part. That’s where I shine.

Staci: Well, I’d hate to interrupt your shine, but we’ve gotta hit the lab.

Dannah: Another letter?

Staci: Yep! And you promised you’d show me the next piece of the lie detection machine.

Dannah: I sure did. Can I watch the rest of this episode though?

Staci: We gotta book it. There’s work to be done. But I’ll give you a couple of questions on the way to the lab. Okay?

Dannah: Okay. 

Staci: What’s the most popular juice flavor?

Dannah: Orange!

Staci: Name an animal with a tail.

Dannah: A dog!

Staci: Name a city with five letters in its name.

Dannah: Paris!

Staci: Hey, you are pretty good at this.

Dannah: I told ya!

Staci: Alright, you ready to get rolling?

Dannah: Oh, I’ve been on a roll, girl!

Staci: I mean with the letter!

Dannah: I know. Yes, I am. Do you have it?

Staci: Here it is. Let’s see what it says.

“It’s GREAT to be a girl!” I shouted that today at recess when Kyla, Marissa, and I were going as fast as we could on the merry-go-round. Every day we try to see who can stay on the longest. It was ME today. Marissa gave up real quick, and Kyla went down next. We were laying on the ground, trying not to puke, when Marissa shouted, “Girls RULE. Boys DROOOOL!”

Kyla said her mom doesn’t let her say that because girls and boys are both important. That made Marissa mad. She asked Kyla, “Are you a girl hater?” Kyla said, “No! But why do you think boys have to be stupid for girls to feel smart?” Then, they had a big conversation that didn’t make a lot of sense to me. They both say girls and boys aren’t different, but how can Marissa say that AND believe “Girls Rule. Boys Drool”? I’m super confused. ~Laylah

Dannah: Wow! Okay, I’m ready to tackle this for Laylah. Now, last week, I showed you how the Lie-o-meter 100 works. Do you remember?

Staci: Yup! It’s the little silver piece inside that spins like crazy and the purple bulb it cues. The Lie-o-meter detects and identifies a lie someone’s believing, right?

Dannah: Right! Good memory. And remember, we have a Lie-o-meter 100 in the Truth Lab of our heart that we can use anytime. It’s kind of a spirit of convictions that God gives us when we sin or when we start to have our sticky feelings that just won’t go away. 

We just have to be sensitive to notice when sin or sticky feelings start being a problem. That’s the evidence that there’s a lie lurking. Then, we get help from the Bible and maybe a trusted friend to identify a lie and stop feeding it.

Staci: Got it! Hearing Laylah’s letter, I’d have to say, I hear a sticky feeling: confusion. That lets us know that there's definitely a lie at work.

Dannah: You’re right, Staci.

Staci: Looks like I just put that Lie-o-meter out of work, huh? 

Dannah: I’d say so. Now, let’s send Laylah’s letter through the lie detection machine so I can explain the next plug in: the Scripture Searcher 2000. Wanna guess what it does?

Staci: Hmm . . . Scripture Searcher 2000. Well, from the name, I’m gonna take a wild guess and say it searches for Scripture?

Dannah: You’re one smart cookie, Staci Rudolph. One smart cookie!

Staci: Why, thank you!

Dannah: You’re welcome. You see, step #3 in overcoming lies is this: replace the lie with truth. That is to say, find words in the Bible to think about what is true instead of the lie.

Okay, let’s kick up this lie detector, and I’ll point out the Scripture Searcher 2000 as the letter goes through. Rev it up!

Dannah: [Shouting.] Okay, so, the letter is in. The Lie-o-meter 100 is scanning it.

Staci: Yup, here comes the alarm and purple light.

Dannah: You got it! Now, do you see that little screen inside there?

Staci: Yeah! There are words flying by so fast, it kind of looks like movie credits.

Dannah: Well, those weren’t movie credits at all flying across that screen, Staci. Those were different Bible verses. The machine was searching the Scriptures to find the truth for the lies it identified.

Staci: That was pretty cool!

Dannah: I know, right?! It never gets old. Okay, the results are in. Survey says . . .

Staci: Still stuck on Family Feud, huh?

Dannah: Oh, sorry. Well, just as we suspected, Laylah’s sticky feeling is in fact confusion, and a few lies have been identified. These lies are responsible for keeping the feeling of confusion stuck to her.

Staci: Exactly. And like we learned last time we were in the lab, when you let your thoughts be the boss of you, the bad ones I mean, not only do you feel bad, but you also help the roots of the lies you’re believing grow even deeper and stronger.

Dannah: Yup. So the question is, if your thoughts are the boss of your feelings, who or what is going to be the boss of your thoughts?

Staci: Good question, and I’ve got an answer.

Dannah: Go for it!

Staci: Well, really it isn’t my answer. It’s God’s, and it comes from His Word. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, 

Take every thought captive to obey Christ. 

Jesus Christ wants to be the boss of every thought you have. He can be, but it’s up to you to let Him.

Dannah: Good answer.

Staci: Here we go again . . .

Dannah: No, that really was a good answer. No Family Feud. I promise!

Staci: Oh, okay. 

Dannah: In fact, I have an example to show how that answer works too. See, I was in the Dominican Republic a few years ago where I did four True Girl events. And oh, what great fun we had worshiping God, playing games, and studying the truth.

However, it wasn’t always easy. When I got really tired, I began to lose control of my thoughts. I was backstage in Santo Domingo where a lot of my friends had come to see the event, and I was feeling a lot of bad emotions all at the same time!

And I recognized the evidence of a lie: I felt very afraid; I felt insecure.

There were a lot of sticky feelings that I was letting stick to me! And here are some of the thoughts that were bothering me: My friends are not going to have any fun. They’re going to leave early. I’m not a good Bible teacher. If they don’t like the event, they won’t like me.

I identified the lie: I need their approval! I was believing that lie. 

So, I ripped that lie up by its roots by just deciding to not think about it. Then, I got alone, and I said this simple prayer: “Jesus, You are in charge of my thoughts. I want them to be obedient to You! Help me to replace this lie with Your truth. Take control. My thoughts belong to You and You get to be in charge of them.”

And do you know what happened? 

Staci: What?

Dannah: Immediately, Jesus brought a Bible verse to my mind to replace that lie with His truth. It’s actually one Staci shared in the Truth lab not too long ago. It’s Galatians 1:10.

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

God’s truth is that I do not need the approval of my friends; I only need to seek to please God. When I worry about what others think, I’m focused on pleasing the wrong people. In this case, the truth I needed was the opposite of my lie.

I needed this truth: I need God’s approval! I’m His servant!

Staci: That’s awesome! What happened next? How did you make sure this truth stuck to you instead of those sticky feelings?

Dannah: Well, I began to think about this truth over and over. And by doing that, I replaced the lie with God’s truth! And you know what? That night people told me I taught with a special strength in my words. The best news is that fifty-eight girls said they wanted to become Christians that night, after I taught. They sat down with their moms and a counselor at the church. And they really began to understand that Jesus died for their sins and that they needed to surrender their hearts and their lives to Him. 

I got to be a part of that! I got to be a part of what God was doing in the hearts of those girls, because I fought a lie, with truth.

Staci: That’s a great example of choosing to let Jesus be the boss of your thoughts. So, what you’re saying is that we have a big decision to make at the end of the day: who or what is going to be the boss of our thoughts? Will we let Jesus have control? Will we choose to make our thoughts line up with God’s truth?

Dannah: Yes, exactly! Those are the questions you have to ask yourself, True Girl. Let’s try it with Laylah’s situation. So, the sticky feeling she’s experiencing is confusion, and the lie that the Lie-o-meter identified is this:

 Boys and girls aren’t really different after all.

I am sad to say, that is a common lie right now. You aren’t the only one confused by this, Laylah. It seems everyone, everywhere is talking about “Girls Rule. Boys Drool.” They may not use those exact words, but they are trying to figure out if girls or boys are more important. Some are even trying to get rid of the differences between boys and girls.

Staci: They sure are. Now, sometimes there are differences that are not good, and that need to be changed. Like when many women were doing the same kind of work as men but getting paid less than men. That was unfortunate but it’s starting to change, and now men and women who have the same jobs and experience get paid the same. That’s a good thing!

But sometimes the way people try to erase differences is not okay. While it is okay for a woman to dress more like a tomboy than a princess, that’s kind of how I am, to be honest, she should also be thinking, It’s great to be a girl. That doesn’t mean she can’t play basketball or work in construction, or that she can’t like Star Wars more than Cinderella. But what it does mean is that a woman shouldn’t want to be so much like a boy that it erases everything about her that makes her girl-like. Doing that sends the message that being a girl isn’t great at all.

Dannah: Right! So, we need some Truth for this lie, Staci. Here are three ways to find Bible verses to reveal God’s truth, no matter what your confusion is. 

One: Pray and ask God to bring to your mind a verse you have memorized, or maybe a verse you’ve heard before.

That’s exactly what I did in the Dominican Republic when I was feeling overwhelmed by my thoughts.

Staci: A second way is to ask an adult you know who is a Christian to help. Maybe your mom, dad, grandma, or grandpa can think of a Bible verse to help you.

Dannah: Now, this third way is only good if your parents are okay with you using the internet. You could use an online Bible search engine such as BibleGateway.com. Look up a keyword in your lie. For example, my keyword for my lie in the Dominican Republic might be, “approval.” If I used a concordance, that’s a big word but it’s just a search engine in the form of a book. If I used a concordance to search for verses that had that word, I would have discovered Galatians 1:10, the verse that I shared earlier, along with a lot of other helpful verses.

Staci: Just like the lie detection machine!

Dannah: Yup! The Scripture Searcher 2000 in the lie detector machine it’s basically a search engine.

Staci: Super cool. So, the truth that the Scripture Searcher 2000 found in the lie detector machine for Laylah’s lie is that God created two different genders, male and female. 

And the verse God provides to back that truth up is found in Genesis 1:26–27:

Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us." . . . So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

You were created in God’s “likeness.” That means you were created to make people remember and think about God, because there are things about you that are like Him. How cool is that?

Dannah: Very cool. Now, once you find the truth to replace your lie, it’s a good idea to write it on a piece of paper or maybe a notecard and put it somewhere that you can see it every day. That helps you begin to plant it in your heart. Staci, let’s list off the top ten places to post Bible verses when you’re overcoming a lie. Annnd go!

Staci: Your bedroom door so you see it every time you go in.

Dannah: The back of your Bible.

Staci: Your lunch box, if you’re still a packer.

Dannah: Your mom’s purse . . . for drastic emergencies.

Staci: Your best friend’s bedroom, so she can read them too.

Dannah: Your locker, if you have one.

Staci: Your bathroom mirror.

Dannah: The headboard of your bed.

Staci: On your computer.

Dannah: And above the doorway of your bedroom so you see it every time you go in or out.

The goal is to think about God’s truth all the time, every day! That is how you rip up a lie by the root, and replace it with God’s truth!

Staci: Yup! I had to do this when I was about eight years old. You see, I had such a hard time sleeping at night. I would get super sad when the sun went down because I knew it meant it was time for me to lay awake in bed just anxious and kind of afraid.

Dannah: Aw Staci. That’s terrible.

Staci:  I know. But then one night my mom gave me a verse to think about instead of worrying. It was 2 Timothy 1:7:

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

I ended up writing that verse on a note card and pasting it right above my head. And whenever I would start to feel anxious or afraid, I’d look up at that verse, read it a few times, and ask God to help me believe that He has given me a peaceful mind and not an anxious one. It took me some time to fully get over those rough nights, but the truth of God’s Word definitely pulled me through.

Dannah: That’s awesome, Staci. You know what, True Girl? You can do this too! Don’t let your thoughts run wild in your mind. Instead, run them right to Jesus, and let Him be the boss.

Staci: Yes! He’s ready for the job and is just waiting for you to hand them over.

Dannah: Speaking of handing stuff over. Could you pass me that remote? I wanna try to catch another episode of Family Feud.

Staci: Oh boy . . .

Claire: Now we have all three steps in the process to overcome lies with truth.

1. Recognize the evidence. Look for any sin or “sticky” feelings.
2. Identify the lie and stop feeding it. Make a commitment to stop thinking about it so much.
3. Replace the lie with the truth. Find words in the Bible to help you think about the truth.

If you haven’t already, ask your mom to grab a copy of Lies Girls Believe and the True That Sets Them Free. It is available at MyTrueGirl.com. 

Come back to the Truth Lab with us next time when we talk about the most fashionable accessory you can wear. Find out what it is on the next episode of True Girl.

The True Girl podcast is produced by Revive Our Hearts calling women of all ages to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

All Scripture is taken from the NLT.

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