Sometimes our thoughts cause us to question our faith and its genuineness.
5 Minute Read
Some thoughts feel wrong.
Not uncomfortable. Not confusing. But out of bounds.
Like they crossed a line you didn’t even know your mind was able to cross.
And almost immediately, a new question arrives:
“Did I just offend God?”
“Was that the unforgivable sin?”
“Does that thought mean I am a fake believer?”
These thoughts often feel different from everything else.
Not just because of what they say or imagine.
But because of who they are directed toward: God.
They can feel:
“Irreverent”
“Dirty”
“Even blasphemous”
And because of that, they don’t just create anxiety—they create fear.
Blake didn’t want to say the thought out loud.
Obviously the thought had embarrassing aspects to it, otherwise he would have been more willing to share the thought.
Blake seemed shocked as he looked back at the thoughts:
“Did I really just think that?”
“Why on earth would my brain create such a twisted visual?”
After thinking for a moment, he said, “I’m sorry but I don’t think I am able to describe what the thought was.”
These thoughts can be difficult to describe, not because they are unclear, but because many people don’t want to say them out loud.
After all, many are running so hard from the thoughts and working so tirelessly to neutralize the thoughts by verbalizing, they fear they will give it some sort of additional hold over their lives.
Or, at the very least, they fear it will make them look very odd.
A Variety of Kinds
TThe thoughts weren’t always limited to one kind.
Sometimes, they were less about being “dirty” and more about being “disrespectful.”
Regardless, they all had a similar theme—going against what Blake believed and who he wanted to be.
“Is this the devil?” He would ask himself.
“Am I some sort of terrible human being?”
“What is wrong in my head that I would think that?”
Worse yet for Blake, these thoughts sometimes occurred while he was reading his Bible.
Or while praying throughout the day.
Or even while singing songs.
Because of that, they don’t just feel random––they feel targeted.
Does This Mean Something?
He feared that having these thoughts said something about his spiritual health.
“Did I offend God?”
“Does this mean I am not a genuine believer?”
“Am I really saved?”
Blake’s faith was no trivial thing to him; it was central to who he was.
He was respected and trusted by others.
“These thoughts must be a sign of something,” he thought.
He Got Determined
Blake could understand how someone could theoretically have some of the thoughts he was having.
After all the world is full of brokenness, and individuals that rejoice in evil.
But that wasn’t Blake.
So, he became determined to rid himself of such tainting things.
He memorized five different Bible verses and began repeating them whenever the thoughts arrived.
Blake also began trying to pray the thoughts away.
At first, during his mornings and evenings.
But when that didn’t work, he added several time slots throughout his day.
However, he became really introspective and thought maybe it had something to do with the kind of content that he had viewed online before.
Or that it had something to do with some of the friends he had or the movies he had watched.
Blake did a lot to try to rid himself of anything he thought might be contributing to the thoughts.
These thoughts were hitting something he cared about heavily, his faith.
This was something he didn’t want to get wrong.
So he felt he couldn’t simply leave the thoughts unanswered.
The Wrong End of The Stick
One time, I was sitting with a much older gentleman, and he said, “I understand what you are trying to do here, but you are working on this from the wrong end of the stick.”
At first, I didn’t understand what he meant.
He clarified: “The thing you are doing that you think is the solution, isn’t helping you. It’s actually making things worse for you.”
Sometimes the solutions we try aren’t actually helpful.
Sometimes what seems like spirituality and faith, may actually not be.
It’s not that the spiritual activities that Blake was doing were inherently wrong.
No, they were good.
But they were misguided for this situation.
Yes, of course he needs to saturate his life in the Truth.
Yes, of course he needs to devote time to talking to God about what bothers or troubles his heart.
Yes, of course he should rid his life of evil.
But here’s where things began to shift in a way Blake didn’t see at first.
The goal quietly changed.
It was no longer: “I want to walk beside God faithfully.”
It became: “I need these thoughts to go away.”
And once that became the goal, everything else started orbiting around it.
The Bible wasn’t just something he read, it became something he used to neutralize.
Prayer wasn’t just communion with God.
It became an attempt to fix what he was feeling.
And without realizing it, something good had become part of the struggle.
A Counterintuitive Response
The issue wasn’t that he was giving these thoughts too little attention—but too much.
Blake wanted to honor God with his life.
That is a good thing.
But for Blake, some of these spiritual practices had begun functioning as forms of reassurance and control.
Truth was not something Blake needed to use as a weapon to make the thought go away.
It was something he could stand on while the thought was still there.
That is the kind of faith he needed to live out.
The same is true for you: truth can anchor you while the thought remains.
Set Your Mind
Don’t misunderstand––this is not criticism of Blake.
Taking a thought captive does not necessarily mean analyzing it until you understand it or defeating it through mental effort.
Sometimes it means recognizing it for what it is and not letting it lead you.
Yes, you should read and pray and live out the Word daily.
But when you are using those things as a way to make the thought go away, they can become part of the ritual.
To be clear, I am strongly in favor of deeply engaging with Scripture in the midst of struggle.
But it has to be used as intended.
The Bible is not meant to function as a tool to quiet every intrusive thought.
It’s meant to ground you in what is true––even when your thoughts are not.
Blake did everything he could to fix the thoughts.
And yet they didn’t leave.
Because he wasn’t feeding the thoughts less––he was feeding them in a different way.
Hope For Today
You can recognize the thought and allow it to be there.
If you make the goal to make the thoughts go away, they likely never will––you will always be self-assessing.
But if you make the goal to live for the glory of God.
That is where change begins to enter in.
If God’s glory is the central thing, you get busy doing what He has called you to.
And you stop giving the thought the central place and focus of your life.
A faithful response begins to sound more like:
“That thought does not reflect what I believe.”
“I don’t know the reason it arrived.”
“But I’m not going to build my day around it.”
And instead, you return to what God has actually set in front of you.
Let me close by saying this.
If you fear that you have offended God because of an unwanted thought, you are not alone.
But that is not where you have to stay.
You can move forward––your faith rests somewhere more secure than the thoughts passing through your mind every day.
If you’d like to keep reading, you can find more here → Articles
And if talking it through would help you, your always welcome to reach out and schedule a one-on-one meeting to walk through this together.
