Wandering Thoughts, Take Two – Guest Contributor Meredith Freeman

I loved Tyler’s take on Wandering Thoughts, but this sermon is just too good and deserved another look. So this is Wandering Thoughts, part Two

This John Wesley sermon comes from a discussion of 2 Corinthians 10:5, a scripture where believers are called to “bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” Wesley identifies the dilemma that many believers have as a result: what do we do then, with our wandering thoughts? For all the value to be gained from meditation and contemplative prayer, it is both impossible and unhelpful to try to eliminate every wandering thought that enters our minds every moment of every day. If you have ever seen the Disney movie, “Soul” – you know about “the zone.” That place where artists and musicians and creators eliminate every wandering thought and produce beautiful work – no distraction, no interruption. The whole point of “the zone” is that most of life is spent NOT in the zone. In the same way, we can’t possibly expect to stay in a 24/7, stream of consciousness, space of thoughtful attention and reflection upon God. But often this is what comes to mind when we are called to “take every thought captive.” Misrepresenting this text can send believers into a sense of despair, so Wesley brings clarity to this command:

Wesley begins by drawing a distinction between two kinds of wandering thoughts: those that wander from God, and those that wander from our particular task at hand. Thoughts that wander from God are of great concern for Wesley – he says when our thoughts forget God’s presence in every moment of our lives, we are practically living as Atheists who neither know or love God. When they wander after the pleasures of the world, our thoughts lead us into idolatry; when they forget His power and wisdom, justice and goodness, we operate no differently than unbelievers. Any thought which comes from a sinful attitude of pride, of pleasure-seeking, vanity and vengeance … these thoughts are sinful and we must learn to take them captive.

But it is the other wandering thoughts that Wesley helps us understand – those that stray from the task at hand, the rabbit trails and quirks that come from being human. Wesley reminds us that our thoughts sometimes wander because we are experiencing life in a body: we sleep and dream; we get sick and grow tired; we run with our imaginations or struggle against anxiety and depression. They don’t come from an attitude of sin like thoughts that wander from God – they just come from being human and being situated in this world! Wesley says these thoughts are [quote] “no more sinful than the motion of the blood in our veins.” This, I think, gives comfort to those of us who deal with various mental health battles – whether it be anxiety or depression or other mental illness. Our thoughts wander from where we would like them to be, where we would hope them to be, just because we are human. We can’t possibly expect to never experience distractions or interruptions from the people we interact with either – these can definitely cause our thoughts to wander. Wesley seems to understand what C.S. Lewis would say over a century later, that “what one calls interruptions are precisely one’s real life.” Certainly, these wandering thoughts can work against us. They can cause us pain or even lead us into sin if we allow them to, but they aren’t sinful. 

So if some wandering thoughts are sinful, and some wandering thoughts are just part of our human condition, Wesley raises a final question – which ones are we supposed to pray against and be delivered from? Which thoughts do we fight against and take captive?

Wesley unequivocally says YES to taking captive thoughts that wander from God. Any believer who is saved from sin and made perfect in love can expect God to empower them to overcome these thoughts. We are not enslaved to thoughts that keep us distant from God or fighting against Him in our minds – we have already been delivered and can claim victory. Thoughts that wander from God CAN be taken captive by the Spirit of God within us.

But, Wesley cautions us against praying for complete deliverance from wandering thoughts that result from being human. He says this is [quote] “praying for impossibilities and absurdities; praying that God would reconcile contradictions, by continuing our union with a corruptible body without the natural, necessary consequences of that union.” We have a spiritual enemy – the devil and spiritual forces will continue to plant wandering thoughts as a temptation to sin. We live in fragile human bodies and interact with a community of imperfect people – we are going to experience wandering thoughts from sickness and social media feeds and daily facts of life. To deal with these things, Wesley says, we pray for what we CAN be assured of – “that all these things may work together for our good.” We may not be able to extract ourselves from every single wandering thought, but we can still take our thoughts captive to obey Christ. 

The battle for our thoughts should not be a war of despair, but one of ever-increasing victory. We are more than conquerors, Wesley reminds us. Let us be a people who look to God’s power, the kind of power that can actually defeat strongholds, to make our thoughts captive to Christ. Let’s be a people of one-track minds who love God with every inch of our thoughts and every fiber of our beings. Could we be a people who pray this hymn?: “Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.