The Prison of the Mind

Well, you guys asked for my deeper thoughts. Stick with me and this post will uncover a few of my philosophical ponderings (hopefully in a way that makes at least a little bit of sense).

“Your mind can be a manmade prison, or God’s personal garden.”

Have you ever thought about your mind as a prison? When you think of God freeing you from the chains of sin and death do you ever think about the fact that your thoughts are just as much a part of your sinful nature as your actions? Everything starts in the mind. Something may start out as a little thought and gradually grow bigger and bigger until it turns into a life-destroying action. So it’s almost as if the mind is one of the most important things which we must take captive for Christ. We shouldn’t only care about our actions, we should also care about our thoughts. In the bible Jesus hints at this same principle when he tells us that if we hate our brother it is the same as murder. Wow, now that’s heavy. Obviously Jesus thought highly of taking every thought captive, because He not only knew that our thoughts can lead us to a place we don’t want to go (like actually killing someone), but He also said that hate is the same as murder. So, in God’s eyes if our thoughts are filled with hate we are actually murderers. That biblical truth should show us the basic importance of controlling our minds.


What do you think that quote up at the top means? “Your mind can be a manmade prison, or God’s personal garden.” Well, let’s look at that first part. “Your mind can be a manmade prison…” So, our minds can be like a prison. When we let our thoughts take control, let our sinful nature rule in our minds, it’s like putting ourselves in a cage. Now for the second part. “…or God’s personal garden.” So, if we don’t let our sinful thoughts control us, our minds can be like God’s personal garden. Some of you might be wondering what in the world “God’s personal garden” is supposed to mean. Well, if we control our thoughts then God can use our minds to sow His seeds, which will result in His fruits (you know: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control) blooming in our lives. Our mind can be like a cage, we can be a captive to our minds, our sinful nature. Or we can take every thought captive and let God be the Lord of our lives, and our minds, we can let Christ transform our lives. I can promise, if you do this, you will never be the same again.


Some of the sinful thoughts that can turn our minds into a manmade prison are things like: Fear, worry, self-esteem, anger, jealousy, pride, lust, bitterness... and many, many more. Though I’m sure you agree that some of these things are real problems, some of them might seem like little things to you. You might be thinking something like: Sure those things are important and all, but are you really telling me that having thoughts of stuff like worry, fear, or self-esteem is really putting me in a cage, and that stuff like that can one day lead me to a real moral failure??? As hard as it may be for you to believe it, yes I really am.

“Lord, may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing in your eyes.” Psalm 19:14

One very important thing to remember when it comes to the prison of the mind is this. “We have put ourselves in the cage, God didn’t put us there, we put ourselves there, God wants to set us free.” Do you see the importance of that statement right there? We are responsible for our imprisonment. God didn’t put us in the cage. Instead it his God who wants to set us free. If only we will let Him. As you think about your personal prison you might be thinking something like this: I really and truly want to be set free, but as much as I want this I can’t do it. I can’t set myself free, it’s to hard, my thoughts are out of my control. Well I have to agree with one thing. You can’t do this, at least not alone. But, the great thing about this whole deal is, you don’t have to. No you can’t set yourself free from your cage, but God can. All you have to do is ask.

“But God is faithful and fair. If we admit that we have sinned, he will forgive us our sins. He will forgive every wrong thing we have done. He will make us pure.” I John 1:9

When we try to hide our sins and our failures from God and man out of fear it can only result in more heartaches. Trying to keep our thoughts secret will only result in making the bars of our cage even stronger and more uncomfortable. We are all sick of our secrets, we all want to be set free!

“When I kept silent about my sin, my body became weak because I groaned all day long. Day and night your heavy hand punished me. I became weaker and weaker as I do in the heat of summer. Then I admitted my sin to you. I didn't cover up the wrong I had done. I said, "I will admit my lawless acts to the Lord." And you forgave the guilt of my sin.” Psalm 32:3-5

Before we move on I want to make one more thing perfectly clear. Even after God has set us free from our prison that does not mean we wont ever be tempted to think impure thoughts again. We are all tempted to sin, but with God’s help we can overcome that temptation and cast out all of our sinful thoughts, cleansing our minds.

Not only is it important to take our sinful thoughts captive it is just as important to replace those thoughts with something worthwhile.

“Finally, my brothers and sisters, always think about what is true. Think about what is noble, right and pure. Think about what is lovely and worthy of respect. If anything is excellent or worthy of praise, think about those kinds of things. Do what you have learned or received or heard from me. Follow my example. The God who gives peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9

Even if you remove all of the bad thoughts from your mind, if every time you are tempted to think impure thoughts you take those things captive and throw them out, that does not mean you are thinking good thoughts. What are you doing than? You are still concentrating on the bad thoughts! Think about it, if you are so concerned in ridding yourself of our evil thoughts that all you think about is those same evil thoughts that you wanted to not think about in the first place you are never going succeed in your pure-mind mission. So, the logical solution to this problem is to think good thoughts! The Bible gives us explicit instructions on the subject. We are told to think about what is TRUE, what is NOBLE, what is RIGHT, what is PURE, what is LOVELY, what is WORTHY OF RESPECT, what is EXCELLENT, and what is WORTHY OF PRAISE. And if we do these things we are told “that the God who gives peace will be with you.” I don’t know about you but personally I think those couple verses are filled with such hope, such promise. These verses do not mean that we have to think about the Bible all of the time (though reading it and pondering its passages on a regular basis is something I highly encourage), but what they do mean is that we should always be thinking about things that line up with God’s Word, things that are true, things that are noble, right, and pure, things that are lovely and worthy of respect, things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

When I stated in my update post that I wanted to share some of my deeper thoughts with you I really hadn’t planned on giving a long spill on “The Prison of the Mind”. In all honesty I hadn’t given much thought to cages as they have to do with our minds or otherwise, or anything like that at all. What I wanted to share with you guys was really just more (wait for it) about trusting in the Lord and having faith (I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this subject), and how that pertains to my own personal walk with the Lord. I had wanted to share with you how I have struggled through my own doubts, my own worries, my own fears. But then on Sunday at church our pastor gave a sermon on “The Prison of the Mind” and I just knew I had to post something about it. His sermon was so powerful, and so was the story shared by another man who has had personal experience with little thoughts taking people to extremes, and how hiding your failures only makes things a whole lot worse.

In my own life I’ve always thought I struggle the most with my mind. Listening to the sermon this past Sunday only confirmed that for me. Specifically I struggle with a few things pertaining to the mind more than others. One which is not really that big of a secret to most people (or at least the surface of the sin) is self-esteem. I’m sure every person in the world struggles with self-esteem to a certain degree. In my own life I see that sin springing out more and more everyday. And it all started in my mind. This is a sin that I fully acknowledge and that I am daily trying to take captive and overcome. The difference in fake Barbie doll beauty and real beauty is a subject for another post entirely (and one which I plan on covering sometime in the near future, along with other things pertaining to this) but it does have a lot to do with the specific sin of self-esteem being rooted in my mind and more specifically the minds of girls all around the world.

Other sinful thoughts pester me daily, and sometimes I give in to the strong temptation. I’ve been convicted though to take full control of my thoughts, I want to spare myself the heartache of future problems, of a life that has spun out of control, and I want to help others do the same. I hope this post has helped someone, somewhere. I don’t know who is reading this right now, but I want you to know that I am praying for people everywhere who struggle with what seems to be a never ending battle in their minds.

If you would like me to pray for you specifically please leave a comment or send me an e-mail. And remember the truth found in 1 John.

“But God is faithful and fair. If we admit that we have sinned, he will forgive us our sins. He will forgive every wrong thing we have done. He will make us pure.”