Mind Games

Your thoughts can make yoU believe or make yoU doubt. They can be true or false. They can lead yoU toward a healthy lifestyle or steal away your ability to live a fulfilled life. Perhaps most powerfully, thoughts have the ability to free yoU, or they can enslave yoU inside the worst cage of all…yourself.
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I believe God has placed inside each of us a desire for intimate passion, soulful purpose, and mind-boggling potential. Yet too often we let our minds (or the way we think) get in the way of all that. We let our poor thinking dictate how we aRe going to live. We invest poorly in our minds, so we get a poor return on our investment. In short, we play mind games with ourselves.
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I’ve played mind games for most of my adult life. One day a couple of years ago, I woke up and decided I was going to stop cold turkey. No more playing the games that had so often left me feeling depressed, anxious, obsessed, alone, fearful, codependent, and paranoid. I’m no shrink or theologian, and I will not pretend to be, but I’ve learned over the past several years what God can do with the human mind. And I’m living proof that he can use just about any type of mind for his purpose and glory. The book you’re now holding, Mind Games, is one part my story and one part lessons I’ve learned about my mind and how I cannot survive without thinking free – and neither can yoU.
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I coined the term ‘freethinking’ to describe a mind that is free of game playing, free of bondage, free of self-absorption. A mind in pursuit of being surrendered to the passions and dreams of Jesus is truly free. I’ve often had to learn this the hard way on my journey of faith. But I’ve come to realize that the more I surrender, the more I am able to be free from bondage of worry, anxiety, and depression. It’s not like I don’t ever feel those things; I do, but they no longer define who I am. They don’t lock me up in a cage. They don’t control me. My pursuit of being dependent on Jesus sets me free from that cage.
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Reality brings challenges into our lives that can send us into mental tailspins. I’ve been there. You’ve probably been there, too. But no matter whether it’s depression or anxiety or codependence or anger or lack of confidence or fear that cripples our ability to think free, God can heal it. That’s what freethinking is all about – finding freedom and healing. And we all need it no matter what our stories entail…

Matthew Paul Turner (The opening to Mind Games)