Mind Craft: Take Your Thoughts Captive to Transform Your Marriage Sample

The Power of Our Thoughts

At one time every marriage is full of hopes, dreams and possibilities. What happens? Why do so many couples just exist together?

What I see time and time again is that people mentally reframe their spouse. The positive thoughts have been slowly replaced with negative thoughts. How do we reverse the process? How do we keep that from happening in our marriage? Or if it has, how do we breathe life into our marriage again?

Obviously, it begins with change. Where does change start? It starts in our minds. Our mind and thought life can be powerful ways that we honor and obey God, or they can be powerful strongholds that keep us from experiencing all He has for us. The command to “love the Lord your God...with all your mind,” shows that our mind is an active part of our relationship with God.

The instruction Paul gives us to “take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ,” demonstrates that we are not the victim of our thought life, but we have control over what we think. The more you think about something, the stronger it grows in your brain and the more influence it has on your future thoughts, words, and actions. Our thoughts impact the health and quality of our marriage.

What are your thoughts about your marriage and your spouse? Are they positive or negative? Then what do you do with those thoughts? Those thoughts are real things. When we think of something we build it into the structure of our brain. It is a physical entity that changes the environment of our brain and body. When we choose to allow a thought to grow inside our brain, feeding it with attention and time, it will affect the cells in our brain and body, impacting our future thoughts, words and actions. Our marriage then becomes what we think.

Every couple has problems and issues to deal with. The key is how we deal with them. If we see each other positively as a teammate, then we solve the problems together. If we see our spouse negatively, as an enemy, our thoughts will follow that track.

Marriage was designed by God to be the closest, most intimate relationship in this life, next to our relationship with Him. Since that was God’s design, why not invite Him into your thought life? When we pray to God, things change. We get God’s perspective. Prayer helps us humbly submit to God’s perspective, rather than “lean on our own understanding.” The Holy Spirit can help us take our negative thoughts and transform them into positive ones. He can do what we, on our own, cannot do.

Next Steps:

• What is your internal dialogue about your spouse?
• What do you say to yourself about him/her?
• Is it positive or negative?
• If it is negative, why?
• What needs to happen to turn that around?
• Make a list of ways to reframe your spouse from negative to positive.