Evil thoughts come and go, like the waves on the seashore, sometimes they’re stronger, sometimes weaker… but they don’t cease or do they?

People all over the world struggle with this uncontrollable part of the body: the mind. It’s like a machine you own, that is out of control, taking the lead in your life. You want to think of good things, be positive, be cool about what just happened, but your mind is simply ‘positivity resistant’.

I’ve had a couple of struggles with my thoughts in the past. One in particular really hit me hard and when I remember, I feel such a fool to have given in to it. I was my usual self and doing the usual things, until this stressing news was passed on to me. Someone I admired a lot and aspired to be like had just realized she needed deliverance. I was shocked, first because she was and still is a woman full of grace, and secondly because ‘if she being the person she was needed deliverance, what about me?’ so I thought.

Here I was, young and still learning so many new things on how to be a good wife and servant of God, and this sad and shocking news come banging on my head. I started to have doubts about my own spiritual life, thinking that I probably needed deliverance just as much. It took me one month, which looked more like one lifetime, to realize that it was a snare of the devil.

I cried and cried, begged God to give me assurance, and became from a fulfilled woman to a distressed woman. Until one day, when I couldn’t take it any longer, my mother, out of the blue, read the following verse to me:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Pe 1.3 – 5

My eyes welled up with tears as I realized that I had been entangled in thoughts that didn’t come from reason, neither have any base, nor made any sense. It was then that I started to question them ‘why aren’t’ I of God?’ ‘Why doubt about my spiritual life with God?’… And the funny refreshing thing was that I had spent the whole month searching my heart and spiritual life before God and had found nothing that could even hint a problem, and yet, I doubted.

If we listen to any rubbish thought that comes in our mind, we lose our faith, and that is dangerous for our salvation, for it depends solely on our faith. I learned this the hard way, but I learned it and my thoughts have never again taken over me. I question them. I use my intelligent faith.

In Faith
Cristiane Cardoso