Probably every Christian knows what it is like: to suddenly have a sinful thought pop up out of nowhere, completely out of character and unlike anything we would normally think. Sometimes those thoughts disappear as soon as they enter our minds, but other times, they keep pushing, nagging for attention. Thankfully, God didn’t leave us helpless: in His Word, we find Biblical tools for dealing with intrusive thoughts. To find out what the Bible teaches about intrusive thoughts, let’s begin with a parable.
A parable about intrusive thoughts
This story is about two sisters, Eve and Deborah, who worked summer jobs in their father’s vineyard. Both women loved their father and were eager to help him now that the grapes were ready for picking.
One day, Eve retreated to a remote spot to rest in the sun during her break. She was enjoying the view when suddenly a crow flew at her as if it wanted to attack her. It landed on her head, and she felt its nails clawing and pulling at her hair. It hurt, and the bird was heavy, but she tried not to move. Her heart was beating in her throat, and she tried to relax, even though every muscle told her to run. She had learned that the best way to deal with dangerous animals was to ignore them and sit still until they left on their own. A few seconds later, the crow flew off. Astonished, Eve ran to her sister and told her what had happened. “Wow,” Deborah said, “thank God that it left. They can be dangerous, you know. What would you have done if it hadn’t flown off, or if it decided to peck at you?”
“I don’t know,” Eve responded. “Scream for help, I suppose. Dad or one of the other workers would probably have heard.”
“Yeah, you’re right, you’d be fine.”
The next day, during Eve’s lunch break, the crow returned. This time, it landed on Eve’s lap. Less startled than the day before, Eve observed the crow. “Where do you come from?” she asked with a gentle voice. The crow tilted its head, as if it tried to understand what she said, and then made itself comfortable in her lap. Eve knew that she’d best not befriend this crow, since her father despised them: he kept warning them that crows often destroy large parts of the harvest. She rose, and the crow flew off. This time, she didn’t tell her sister about her encounter.
The next day, during her break, she was expecting the crow’s return, so she looked around, but didn’t see it anywhere. So, she opened her lunch box, ready to dig into her bread, as she was hungry from all the hard work. At that very moment, the crow returned. But it didn’t land on her as it had before; instead, it stole her bread from her lunch box and flew off with it. Eve was upset, but she knew there was nothing she could do about it anymore. She cut her break short and asked Deborah, “Can I have a piece of your bread? I forgot mine at home.” She immediately felt guilty for lying, but she was too ashamed to tell Deborah what happened, even though she didn’t really understand why.
The whole day her mind was occupied with the crow. “Why would he harass me like that? Or was it trying to be friendly? If it were friendly, why would it steal my bread? Or maybe it was just hungry?” Thoughts raced through her head, trying to make sense of the situation. She decided she would try to figure out why the crow was there.
When she was on her break again the following day, she was ready for it. She had brought a bunch of ripe grapes to feed the crow. She didn’t have to wait long; it landed on her lap the moment she sat down. It had grown bigger than before; she noticed. “Well, I guess you enjoyed those sandwiches!” Eve chuckled, “Here are some healthy grapes, see if you like those.” To her surprise, the crow dug in. In no time, her fruit was gone. “Now, why are you here?” she asked gently. It tilted its head, then flew right at her face! Eve fell backward while the crow pecked at her face with its sharp beak. She tried to get away, but the harder she struggled, the more fiercely it attacked her. She screamed. Deborah heard her cry and came running, shielded her, and shooed the bird away with fearless authority. “You’re okay, don’t worry, I’ll take you to Dad,” she comforted her sister. She brought Eve to her father’s house to tend to her wounds and to help her recover. Seeing her father, Eve fell into his arms and broke down. She cried, “Why did this crow attack me? What did I do to deserve this?”
Her father responded, “It’s not just you. This crow attacks everyone. It is constantly out to steal, kill, and destroy. What you need, is a good armor with a weapon to defend yourself. And I’ve got just the thing…”
The first line of defense against intrusive thoughts
What this father, a picture of God the Father, refers to is the Armor of God. Eve was plagued by intrusive thoughts, represented by the crow. Wearing the whole Armor is important for battling intrusive thoughts. And with the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Wearing the Armor, Eve would have every capacity to submit the intrusive thoughts to Christ:
- She would have known how to stand firm in the authority we have in Christ. We have the authority to resist the devil; we don’t have to just sit there and let the devil do to us whatever he wants. He is not in control; God is. And God often gives the devil some leeway to test and build our faith in Jesus. He wants us to exercise our authority in Him; that is how we stand the test, win, and grow our faith stronger.
- Eve wouldn’t have put her focus on the intrusive thoughts, but on her Father’s wishes and the purpose He had for her (working in His Kingdom).
- She would have been able to fight off the intrusive thoughts with the Truth of God’s Word, instead of feeding them, pleasing them, agreeing with them. When she fed the thoughts, it cost her, her sister, and her Father valuable resources. When intrusive thoughts have time to take hold, it will always cost us valuable resources. It will destroy our ability to digest our daily Bread (the Word of God), it will steal the energy we need for fulfilling our purposes in Christ, and we will be robbed of the good fruit we produce.
[The text continues after the image.]
The source of intrusive thoughts
The enemy berates every mind with thoughts that are not ours, but his, hoping to distract, to deceive, or to tempt us into sinning. Of course, we also have thoughts that our own flesh produces, such as when we long for that snack we shouldn’t eat, and have several fleshly and holy thoughts competing with each other. Paul talks about his own struggles with fleshly, sinful thoughts that struggle with his will to do the right thing (Romans 7:21-25).
But some thoughts just seem to randomly appear out of nowhere. Thoughts that are violent, taboo, distressing, or blasphemous and that have no relation to what we really want, believe, or know is true. These aren’t from God, and aren’t produced directly by your flesh. The difference becomes apparent when reading certain passages in the Bible. For example, when Jesus said that the heart produces evil thoughts and actions (Mark 7:20-23), He was speaking about the unrenewed heart. We see many other references in the Bible about the evil thoughts of unrenewed, unrighteous, unbelieving hearts (for example, Genesis 6:5, Isaiah 55:7, Matthew 12:34, Hebrews 3:7-12). And we also read about the night and day change of hearts after renewal: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26), and, “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Hebrews 8:10b).
The difference is that intrusive thoughts are foreign and appalling to a renewed heart and a healthy conscience; the heart doesn’t produce them itself from its own desires, but they are put there by the enemy. They only become sin when we accept them (and thus make them our own), transform them into intent, or put them into action (Matthew 5:28, Hebrews 4:12). This happened with Ananias and Sapphira, believers who died for going along with the plan satan put in their hearts (Acts 5:3). Satan’s idea found traction because it reflected their own uncrucified desires; otherwise, they wouldn’t have put it into action the way they did. The fact that you are appalled by the thought Satan tried to insert is evidence that it doesn’t reflect your genuine desires.
The devil actively looks for vulnerabilities in our armor and shoots flaming darts at us (Ephesians 6:16). That is why these intrusive thoughts often relate to specific urges of the flesh, such as sexual drive, the need for an escape, fears of past events repeating, the need for control, and so on. He hopes we will forsake our beliefs and believe the lie that he has placed in our hearts instead.
If you have intrusive thoughts all the time, interfering with your daily life, you may benefit from professional support to help you deal with these thoughts and any underlying needs that may trigger them. But everybody has such thoughts now and then, especially in moments when we are weakened. The devil likes to attack us when we are most vulnerable; otherwise, he doesn’t stand a chance. Vulnerability increases when we suffer from, for example, sleeplessness, trauma, stress, fear, or a shaky faith that doesn’t stand firm on the Rock.
What opens the door to intrusive thoughts?
Most of us recognize nagging thoughts like, “Have I left the stove on?” or “Did I lock the door?” I remember how those thoughts would consume me. I often went back, or when I couldn’t, I tried to retrace my steps in my mind. Hoping that the house didn’t burn down while I was away, or that I would find it completely robbed clean. I would go as far as checking the news while suffering from severe anxiety and not being able to focus on anything else. Thankfully, I don’t have those thoughts anymore; they have been completely replaced by a trust in God. I know that God, who is ultimately in control, will protect my possessions if that is His will, and if it is not His will, He is fully able to bless me with something even better, as He did with Job.
Since I don’t have those particular fears anymore, the enemy stopped attacking me in that area. But I still have other vulnerabilities where he occasionally attacks me when I let my guard down. I am sometimes almost overcome with contamination fears, making me want to clean things excessively. At times, I worry sick about loved ones. And sometimes the enemy attacks me by sowing doubt in my mind about my husband. We are very happily married, and I trust my husband. I love him, and he loves me, but sometimes thoughts creep in, like, “What if he is not to be trusted and our whole marriage turned out to be too good to be true?”
Besides circumstances that we have little control over, like sleeplessness, hormones, or spiritual attacks, there are also ways in which we can accidentally open the door to intrusive thoughts. We do this when we allow the enemy to put a foot in the door. That foot can be anything: perhaps a triggering documentary we watched, believing someone’s false accusation, being alone for too long, or stress and exhaustion from working in our own strength. Anything that weakens the flesh and our emotional and spiritual state, instead of building us up.
When I give those things any power, the enemy knows how to slither through the door. I give those situations power by not countering them with the Truth immediately, even before any intrusive thought has had the chance to pop up. For example, last time when someone tried to sow a seed of doubt in my mind about my husband, I realized I could choose to accept or discard what that person said. When I say discard, I mean rebuking the lie and immediately throwing it away as if you just touched something boiling hot, and then replacing that with the Truth of God’s Word. In my case, that Truth could be: “What God joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6). What we need to avoid is first looking at the lie, thinking about it, feeding it, and then trying to discard it, since that would be too late: the seed has already taken root and has begun to grow. Weeds grow terribly fast.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take warnings seriously, but we should test everything and only keep what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21, 1 John 4:1). I knew that the person (an unbeliever) who said this had her own past disappointments and dealt with paranoid thoughts, which she often projected onto others.
How Jesus dealt with intrusive thoughts
When Jesus was hungry from fasting for 40 days (and so more vulnerable), the devil tempted Him to jump off the pinnacle of the temple (Luke 4:9). That is very similar, if not the same, to having an intrusive thought. Jesus knew He didn’t want to commit suicide, yet the devil put this temptation in His head, telling Him He would be saved from death by God’s angels. Jesus responded by countering the devil’s crafty words with Bible Truth (Luke 4:12), and the devil left. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7). This is what winning looks like until Jesus returns and defeats the devil once and for all.
Following Jesus’s example, I’ve learned that the best way to deal with intrusive thoughts is this plan:
- Acknowledge, but don’t accept the thought (ignoring doesn’t always work).
- Put it in its place, for example by rebuking it (out loud if possible; your words have power: use your authority in Christ).
- Replace the lie with the Truth (trust that the Holy Spirit and your knowledge of the Word of God will help you with this).
- Leave it in God’s hands by shifting your focus to the task at hand: doing what God called you to do (walking in His purpose, worshiping Him, stewarding His temple, building up your faith, etc.) and trusting Him to do His job protecting you.
- If the same thought returns, or feelings don’t change, that is not a sign it didn’t work; return to step 4.
As the father in the story said, don’t be too worried when you get intrusive thoughts. There is nothing wrong with you; there is something wrong with the devil, who likes to put these thoughts in your mind. But there are ways in which you can protect yourself and fight the good fight.
Be patient with yourself; we all have to learn to walk by falling and getting up. But He already sees a future in which you run freely, graciously jumping over every obstacle the enemy puts in your way.
You may also be interested in the full Armor of God series: