Tactic Of The Day: Condemning Memories
Our brains are one of the most amazing things in this world. There are studies that show on average we are having about 60,000 thoughts in a single day. What a substantial number that our brains are processing information.. Studies go on to say out of those 60,000 thoughts 5 percent are conscious, meaning we actively put thought into them and they are noticed. 5 percent of 60,000 is still 3000 thoughts in a single day that your conscious is putting active energy into.
The interesting thing about all these thoughts is how many we remember in a day? Even in that 3000 active thoughts, how many do you remember throughout the day? There is a piece of scripture that really gives a blueprint to manage our thoughts and it is 2 Corinthians 10:15 “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,”
The amazing thing about this verse is if you read through 2 Corinthians 10:1-6 you see Apostle Paul is specifically talking about spiritual warfare and such a big part of spiritual warfare is evaluating these thoughts we have every day.
A specific tactic the enemy and his army use is making you think about condemning past memories that would lead you down a thought process out of God’s nature. Let me give you an example, have you ever been doing something and you had a quick memory flash across your head of something you did wrong or maybe thought of a memory that is condemning or shameful. These memories are specifically planted so you start to go down the road of thinking about shame, guilt and condemnation. The only intention of these memories are to try and make you feel like you are the things God says you’re not.
For example say you had a quick flash of a memory where you were embarrassed, now what happens. You start to relive the memory, you start to wonder if you still feel that way and your general process of thoughts are heading for the rout of embarrassment. Is being embarrassed a trait that God would want you to feel? No God can correct us for a time we were embarrassed but He would not retroactively put in condemning thoughts just to get you to feel the emotion.
This is where our verse in 2 Corinthians comes into play because we have to have thought evaluation of what is coming into our head. As you have a memory that plays where you are embarrassed take that memory and ask “why would I be thinking about this”
There are times where you God has you think about the past but God’s point would be for correction and not condemnation. Picture in the past your did spilt their drink and it went everywhere, you then with your child clean up the drink and explain they need to be more careful. Now picture they are walking and you can see they are about to spill and you stop them and say “ okay do you remember the last time you carried your drink like this and everything spilt” You would do this to show correction so the drink doesn’t spill but not to condemn them. As you explain that to your kid now they could see the correction.
Now if you told your child as you knew they were about to spill “don’t you remember what happened last time, you spilt that drink everywhere and I had to clean all of it up, it made such a mess, you were so clumsy and you need to get it together” You brought up a memory to them for condemnation sake. This is the difference between correction and condemnation.
God looks upon our heart and is a perfect communicator so it’s important we evaluate these memories and if one comes along from God it would be for an intentional reason towards a non condemning outcome.
Now on the other hand you have the enemy and his army of evil. Their only goal is to get you to feel every emotion that isn’t good and by doing this they are planting seeds of deceit and unbelief in your heart. Say someone got a memory of a time you treated someone poorly, as that thought comes in the next thought says “ you were so terrible to that person” “ you are so terrible for treating them that way” “you don’t deserve to be loved because you treated people poorly” These are condemning thoughts from the memory. Every one of these deceitful seeds planted by these old memories are all to try and create separation in your relationship with God.
Our responsibility in this process is to analyze what we are thinking and compare it to the word of God and how God teaches and corrects. Romans 8:1 says There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” And for us we are in the spirit which leads to there not being condemnation for us in Christ, so this would not be a tactic God uses for correction.
We do not walk according to the flesh like Romans 8:1says so we should not be evaluating our thoughts according to the flesh but only by the Word of God.
If you struggle with this tactic of torment it’s important to catch the spiral. What will end up happening a lot of times when getting a memory is the army of evil is trying to get an emotional attachment leading you down the spiral. The quicker you can see your spiral is not connected to any Godly emotions this is where you can catch yourself and reframe back to God’s heart. 1 condemning memory will lead to condemning after condemning emotion and thinking of one story can lead you to feeling 10 different emotions. The sooner you can see in the spiral that your feelings condemning emotions the faster you can correct yourself with the word of God.
Also with these memories they will piggy back off of the things you’re currently struggling with, say you’re having depressive thoughts then memories of times you have felt that same emotion will pop into your head. The whole process is trying to get your emotions and your feelings amplified.
Work on correcting your spiral with the word of God as quickly as possible and you will not be controlled by condemning memories.