Jesus frees teacher from the curse of positive thinking
E always came across as positive and joyful, but this image was not based on Christ. It was based on a worldly philosophy of positive thinking, which blinded her to reality and hindered her ability to make sound decisions. Thankfully, her Christian community helped her to see the error in this way of thinking and led her to repent before Jesus. E felt her mind become clearer as a result. Praise God!
When I was younger, I watched an unforgettable romantic movie.
My favourite scene was the first meeting of the female and male characters. The male character saw that the female character had a sad and worried face because she had just gotten fired by her boss. In an attempt to cheer her up, he said “hi”, told her to cheer up and said, “Always look at the bright side of life”. This line was my favourite quote from the movie and it became my life philosophy.
During and after secondary school, I started to develop a passion to learn about life and spirituality. I loved reading books and watching movies about psychology, motivational and inspiring stories, self-help, alternative healing etc. Many of the teachings taught me to have a positive outlook on life and to focus on the only the positive things and whatever will help my mood and thoughts.
These teachings reinforced the belief that I already had “to always look at the bright side of life”.
The idea is that by lifting your mood, you won’t have any problems because you can always focus on the positive side. There’s no negativity at all. We can choose what we want to see and hear.
In college, I chose psychology as my major and continued to learn about ways to help myself and others alleviate negative thoughts and negative moods. When I was studying in grad school, new ageism, alternative healing, and wellness began to become popular, turning into a new culture and even a global trend. Because those teachings were aligned with my passion of helping others through healing, I dived into them. (Clinical psychology also has something similar, we call it the Cognitive Behavioural approach.)
Because of my studies and how I lived by these philosophies, life seemed “happier” and more “positive”.
I received many compliments that I was “so positive and so happy, always like a ray of sunshine”. I was told that this negative world needed more people like me etc. At first, I thrived on that feedback and did not see any negative effect from this approach to life, so I kept on living this way.
But during those years, I began to suffer from depression, and even severe depression. The more depressed I felt, the more I would try to be “positive” and think “positive” things. This created huge mood swings. I would try to be positive and not be depressed, but then I would have a huge emotional drop or huge fall whenever the truth or the reality hit me.
I failed to notice that for years, I was in the fight between these bipolar opposites of positivity and negativity — even after I gave my life to Jesus.
Every time I had negative thoughts and moods, I went to this “pill” of positive thinking for a quick dose to hypnotise myself, until the dosage went down and I began to see the negative things in this world, in my life, in my heart and in my mind again.
It was an impossible and unrealistic way of life. It created a biased way of thinking and a subjective perspective on things. It led me to make decisions that were not based on the foundations of objectivity, truth, and reality. I always just focused on the positive factors to guide my decision making and altered my perception about things or situation accordingly. I did not turn to God or seek the Holy Spirit for wisdom on the truth.
Recently, I made an unwise decision. Thank God a few Christian friends stopped me. With this event, I got to talk about my decision-making process with them.
God, through this experience, showed me that I couldn’t see things clearly.
I often gave many positive “reasons” for other people’s bad behaviour or for bad situations. I did not look at the good and the bad, the pros and the cons, the positive and negative side of things for a balanced view
God showed me that there was an erroneous way of thinking that was still guiding my life and my relationship with others. After chatting with a sister-in-Christ and being prompted by Holy Spirit, I renounced all the new age teachings from positive thinking and positive psychology, and all their related disciplines from me. I also repented for submitting under such worldly teachings that are not from God and not of God. I asked the Holy Spirit to renew my mind and fill me with God’s truth.
“Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.” ~Matthew 23:10
After the prayer, my mind gained clarity and I felt something lift off me.
During the prayer, I also heard the Holy Spirit teach me that those teachings had created a “false integrity” and “false righteousness”. I realised that while all those things seem “good” and “positive”, they are not the same as godly integrity and godly righteousness. All those things didn’t give me life and light, but a biased, erroneous way of thinking and confusion.
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.” ~ 1 Corinthians 10:23
After this experience, I learned and was reminded to be careful and more discerning about things.
Even though there are many things I can still do and learn from or connect with that are of this world, not all things will bring me to life, God’s truth, and Heaven.
This revelation from God, this removal of the veil or blindfold over my mind, is God teaching me to “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of suffering.” 1 Peter 5:8-9
The Lord reminded me to be careful with the things that my mind and heart receive from this world.
As a vessel for the Holy Spirit, I cannot have godly and ungodly teachings to co-exist in my mind and heart at the same time. May our Lord continue to renew us and bring the undesirable things out to Him into His light and truth.
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