Do you ever work yourself up over conversations that you have with people . . . in your head? Do you ever play out worst case scenarios for things that could possibly go wrong in the future? Our thoughts can be like dangerous wildfires, if we let them. In this devotional, we’ll learn how God can help us extinguish those wildfire thoughts.
Megan Wright
Day 1
Scriptures: Luke 6:43-45, Matthew 12:34, 2 Corinthians 10:5
Have you ever played out conversations in your head? Like, if you’re expecting a confrontation with someone, you feel the need to rehearse it out in your head. So, you say what you want to say and then you respond on the other person’s behalf, but it doesn’t go how you wanted (even though it’s literally one sided), and you get all worked up. And what happens? Maybe you avoid that person, or you’re upset with them, all because of this hypothetical conversation in your head. The human brain is fascinating.
What about thinking ourselves into a tailspin over outcomes of circumstances—like thinking about every possible thing that could go wrong or thinking of the “what ifs.”
I put up a firepit in our backyard, and I remember the first fire we started in it. When it was time to come in for the night, I couldn’t get the fire to go out to save my life. And before I knew it, we were basically in a windstorm with the weather—gusts of winds that were crazy, shaking the house and all. I knew that I couldn’t leave that fire going in the pit so I went out with a little glass of water to pour it over the smolders, but the wind was picking up the ashes and blowing them all over the yard. I didn’t want to leave it unsupervised and have a spark fly out and catch the ground on fire. So, here I am—six gigantic bowls of water later (because I didn’t think I needed the hose)—and it still didn’t extinguish it. The thing smoldered all night long.
Our thoughts can be just like a fire. They can smolder for a long time and just smoke, but if a wind comes along, it can pick that smolder up and spark something quickly. Metaphorically, a wind can be an argument, an unmet expectation, a disappointment, a cross word, or a piece of gossip. And it builds quickly, and then it escalates into a bonfire.
Whether we realize it or not, whatever swirls in our head, is what comes out of our mouth. I think this is why God commands us to take our thoughts captive for Christ. Because if they run loose, they run wild. Today, may our thoughts be focused on the power of the Cross and all that’s possible through it.
Day 2
Scriptures: Psalms 139:23-24, Romans 8:28, Isaiah 26:3
Normally, I’m not a person who asks a lot of “why” questions to God. But it’s important to ask why when it comes to the things we struggle with because it helps us identify the root of the “why” instead of just focusing on the symptoms.
Isaiah 26:3 says, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”
What if a root cause of our wildfire thoughts is that we really haven’t asked God to counsel us through the thoughts, the what ifs, or the feelings because we don’t fully trust him with them? Maybe we haven’t gone to him with our troubles because we don’t think he can fix it.
Sometimes we don’t want to release control of someone or something to him because that might mean we have to accept that he’s in control (like we can ever control an outcome anyway). Do we believe that our way of handling things is better than God’s way or that our plans are better than God’s plans?
Romans 8:28 says “he works all things together for the good of those who love him,” but sometimes we think His good should be our good. Maybe we don’t trust that he will work it out how we want it to work out.
Do we believe that God can work out the best possible outcome? Do we really trust him to answer prayers, to financially provide, to fill us up with joy and happiness, to heal marriages, to heal sickness, to restore relationships, or to help us to forgive?
Listen–all of these things are unnerving and unsettling, but when they consume our thoughts, it means we aren’t praying over them with trust; instead we’re stressing over them. Praying produces peace; stressing produces nothing good.
Today, ask God to search your heart and thoughts and reveal where your roots are so that you can identify where the wildfire thoughts are stemming from.
Day 3
Scriptures: Deuteronomy 1, Numbers 13:25-33
In Deuteronomy, Moses and the Israelites are in Moab and are preparing to take over the Amorites. Moses said to them, “the Lord has placed the land before you; go up and take possession of it!” God was leading the way and told them not to fear! God had promised them victory!
But the Israelites seemed to be rooted in their fear and in their past pain. They didn’t keep their eyes focused on God and his Word. They allowed those roots and the negative talk from each other to drown out the truth. Scripture says that they were grumbling. They were talking about the fears and “what ifs” with each other. They allowed their past experiences to stop their future. They seemed to have allowed their negative thoughts, to be the loudest voice they heard. They ultimately allowed their thoughts to stop them from entering the Promised Land.
We do that too though, right? We have doubts about something, and so we start venting it out with someone, and then they share their negative thoughts about it and then you’re both on a tangent about it, all worked up and ready to start a fight. When in reality nothing new has transpired that you didn’t know; it’s just that you kept replaying it in your head. Then you gave it validity in your mind by saying it out loud, and when someone else heard those words said out loud, they felt validity in it too, and the dangerous wildfire thoughts then became actions.
Sound familiar? What thoughts are stopping you from God giving you what he has promised?
God has all these beautiful things waiting for us, but if we are sitting in our negative thought fires, brewing, stirring, and focusing on all that we don’t have, then our eyes won’t look up to what God has right in front of us.
It’s so easy to do that with negative thoughts, and the enemy knows that.
And what we have to learn how to do is identify our negative thought pattern and intentionally stop it so that we can replace it with truth—God’s truth. Our thoughts change when we accept that God’s truth (His Word) is our truth. Our lives change when God’s truth is our foundation.
Day 4
Scriptures: Proverbs 4:23, John 14:27, Philippians 4:7, Colossians 3:15
Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life.” Vigilance is the action or state of keeping careful watch for possible danger or difficulties.
Are you being vigilant in how your heart (your mind) is flowing? Are your thoughts being watched carefully for possible danger or difficulties? Things like fear, anger, discontent, jealousy, insecurity, or comparison can bring difficulty and danger.
We have a pond on our property. It gets its water flow from the pond that’s next to it, which gets its water from a little creek flowing into it. Last year, our pond was all the sudden really cloudy and full of muck. I bought pond cleaner; I got in my little john boat and went around the whole pond’s edge pouring the cleaner in. But nothing worked. The cleaner didn’t make any difference. We then realized that our neighbor upstream a bit had been clearing some land, and all kinds of dirt and bacteria were landing in the creek. And that muck made its way down the creek to my pond and muddied the waters terribly.
We have to be vigilant in keeping our source clean, so to speak (our thoughts), from the muck because all the things that are flowing from that spill out into our actions (our life). It spills out into how you process things, how you treat others, how you forgive, how you serve others, how you spend your time, how you parent, how you love, how you do life.
Yes, this takes intentionality, consistency, and persistence–all things that make the commitment extremely hard. But living in a wildfire mentality is also extremely hard. Choose your hard. One way will bring peace and the other strife.
What if we used God’s Word with vigilance to replace our dangerous thoughts with life-giving things flowing downstream instead?
Day 5
Scriptures: Psalms 19:14, Colossians 3:1-2, Matthew 4:4, Ephesians 6:17, Romans 12:2
We humans can convince ourselves that our thoughts are facts even if they aren’t. It’s like the Boogie man under the bed. Has anyone actually ever seen a Boogie man? What even is that? Or the monster in the closet–has anyone ever had a monster in their closet? Or the masked man with the chain saws in the garage. How many people have actually seen this in real life?
Colossians 3:1 says to seek and set our minds on the things above. That’s an intentional act, a choice. And he’s saying to intentionally think about things of Heaven–the things that matter to eternity, things that will make a difference for the Kingdom, things that will plant good seeds for a good harvest. He specifically says to not set our minds on things of this earth. If you had to take a thought assessment right now, are your thoughts focused more on the things of Heaven or the things that don’t produce healthy good things (the earthly things)?
Mathew 4:4 says that we are to live on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God—to live on it. That means it’s got to be our foundation of our thoughts.
If we aren’t reading God’s word to fill us up and transform us with the renewing of our minds, then we are void of fullness. When we’re not full on the bread of life (Jesus), then we are in starvation mode, and we fill that space up with the wrong things.
We have to fight the wildfire thoughts with our weapons, and God says that our greatest weapon is his Word! He calls it our sword. We need to pick up our Bibles when we start to go off on thought tangents, open it up, and ask the Holy Spirit for his truth. We need to fill up on who God is instead of thinking of who we aren’t. We need to fill up on what God can do instead of thinking about what we lack. We need to learn how much God has come through for his people instead of fearing that he won’t come through for us.
Lord, help us to extinguish our wildfire thoughts by living on the Word and setting our minds on eternity.