Hope Is the First DoseSample

“Bad Thought Biopsy”

Are you ready to climb out of the pit into which trauma has thrown you? If so, then in medical terms, you’re ready to become your own patient. It’s time to learn what I call bad-thought biopsy. The biopsy will allow you to critically examine a thought, make the correct diagnosis, and form an appropriate treatment plan to take care of the problem.

Here’s an example of how it works for me.

THOUGHT: I did something wrong, or my son would have been home with me that night he died.

BIOPSY: Is the thought true or false?

RESULT: It is objectively false.

TREATMENT REQUIRED: I need a thought transplant. I need to start thinking this: You didn’t have any possibility of changing where Mitch was that evening. Furthermore, it doesn’t help you now to ruminate on it.

This technique helps me create space between the initial, negative thoughts that are always lurking and my reaction to them. That space allows me to then choose an appropriate response to the thought.

As usual, I found the Bible to be way ahead of me. In Psalm 116, for example, David says:

I trusted in the Lord.

when I said, “I am greatly afflicted”;

in my alarm I said,

“Everyone is a liar.” (Verses 10-11, NIV)

Do you see that? His brain is saying, “I’m afflicted, and everyone is lying,” but at the same time it’s telling him to trust the Lord.

And it’s not just David. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (NIV).

This is biblical self-brain surgery, friend, and it starts with the bad-thought biopsy. David and Paul were aware of their baseline negative thinking, and they pre-emptively decided to develop a discipline of thinking about their thinking as a defense.

A note before I leave this topic: sometimes our negative thoughts are true. But even then, engaging the thought biopsy allows us to recognize the truth, and, as Jesus said, the truth will set us free.

In God’s goodness, there is always cause for hope.

Hope is where we begin.

Identify one or more negative thoughts you’ve been dwelling on. Do a “biopsy” on them—what’s the truth? What treatment does this procedure suggest?