Review-Max Lucado's Tame Your Thoughts

 We all have thoughts that we wish we could turn off.

Sometimes it’s worry about something that hasn't happened yet. Sometimes it’s replaying something that happened yesterday. Sometimes it is fear, discouragement, anger, or simply wondering, “what if?”

Our minds can be a noisy place.

That is what makes Max Lucado’s book Tame Your Thoughts so timely. Lucado deals with something every one of us faces, the battle that takes place in our minds.

The basic message of the book is simply that we don't have to allow every thought that enters our minds to control us.

That is an important distinction. We cannot always control what thoughts come into our minds. A troubling thought may suddenly appear. A memory may come back. Fear may creep in. But just because a thought enters our mind doesn't mean we have to believe it, dwell on it, or allow it to determine how we live.

The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5 to “take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

That is really at the heart of Lucado's message.

We need to learn to recognize our thoughts and ask, “Is this true? Does this agree with God's Word? Is this helping me trust God, or is it pulling me away from Him?”

One thing I appreciate about this book is that Lucado doesn't pretend that Christians will never struggle with negative thoughts. We all do. Living in a fallen world means we will have struggles, worries and, at times, become discouraged.

It means we don't have to face those thoughts alone.

When worry says, “what if everything goes wrong?” faith reminds us that God is still in control.

When fear says, “you can't handle this,” Scripture reminds us that God is with us.

When discouragement says, “there is no hope,” God's Word reminds us that our hope is found in Him.

That is where this book becomes very practical.

Lucado encourages us to replace unhealthy thinking with biblical thinking. Philippians 4:8 tells us to think about things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise.

That doesn't mean we ignore the problems around us. It means we don't allow our problems to become bigger in our minds than our God is.

I also appreciated the author’s emphasis on prayer.

Philippians 4:6–7 tells us not to be anxious, but to bring our concerns to God through prayer and thanksgiving. God's answer isn't always to immediately change the situation. Sometimes He changes us in the middle of the situation by giving us His peace.

That is a lesson for all of us.

Sometimes we spend so much time thinking about a problem that we forget to pray about it.

We replay the problem over and over in our head.

We think about it constantly.

We imagine every possible outcome.

And then we wonder why we are anxious.

Lucado reminds us to take those thoughts to God.

Like previous Lucado books, one of the strengths of Tame Your Thoughts is that it is easy to understand. Lucado writes in a conversational way, and his illustrations make the subject relatable. You don't have to be a theologian or a psychologist to understand what he is saying.

At the same time, I don't think this book is intended to be a deep academic study of the human mind. It is much more practical than that. Lucado's goal is to help Christians understand that our thought life matters and to give us biblical tools for dealing with the thoughts that can control us.

And that is probably what I appreciate most about the book.

It reminds us that our thoughts are important, but they don't have to be in charge.

We will have thoughts of fear.

We will have moments of doubt.

We will have days when discouragement gets the better of us.

But we can bring those thoughts to Christ, compare them to Scripture, and replace the lies with God’s truth.

And we can choose to focus our minds on the One who is greater than whatever we are facing.

One of my favorite examples is the chapter where Lucado imagines receiving a letter from Moses that deals with complaining. 

Overall, I found Tame Your Thoughts to be an encouraging and practical reminder of the importance of our thought life.

The book doesn't promise that we will never have another negative thought. Instead, it points us toward something more realistic and biblical: learning what to do with those thoughts when they come.

We may not always be able to control the first thought that enters our minds.

But with God's help, we can control what we do with it.

And sometimes, the battle we need to win today isn't happening around us.

It's happening between our ears.