Taking captive every thought

God has been exponentially growing me this semester - praise his name for that! 

The thing is, I think that I've given it all to him, all of myself, but I really haven't. Slowly but surely, my Father's peeling back the layers of my sin, exposing new things that I need to change. New things that I need to give over to him, and stop hiding and putting in the back of my mind, stop making smaller than they really are. It's called sanctification- and sometimes I feel like God's taking me through the fire to make me more like his son, but I know it's for the very best- much better than what I've been doing to myself.

Over the past couple of weeks, through people who knew what I was going through and through people who had no idea, I've been able to take some destructive thought patterns captive! Thought patterns that ruined my night, that made me feel afraid or a failure for no reason. I've been able to see what they truly are- lies from my own fleshly heart and lies from the Devil! Let me say it again- they are false. Not true. These thoughts have no power over me! I just need to fight them- and with the right weapons. 

This passage occurred to me on one occasion in the last week and a half and it keeps on coming back to me: "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

And even if I do something stupid, it's never the end of the world "For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity." (Proverbs 24:16) And I don't pull myself up by my own bootstraps, either, but I get up through the strength the Holy Spirit has given me - "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

Thank God for friends who pray for me, for friends who will listen to what I have to say, for friends with advice. I thank him for his word that already told me what to do, if I would but listen.