Thoughtpocalypse: When Your Mind Keeps Seeing the End of the World

By John Alan Cameron

The verse that changed my life

Several years ago I read one verse of Scripture and it changed my life. It’s tucked away in Romans 1, and most people read straight past it.

“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:21 NIV 1984)

Paul starts a few verses earlier with something beautiful. God has made an incredible world. Since the creation of the world, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. You can see him everywhere you look.

Which means every single day you and I are invited to joy. To wonder. To worship.

We are constantly surrounded by reminders of who God is. And yet, most of the time, we neither glorify him as God nor give thanks to him.

And Paul tells us what happens when we forget about God: our thinking becomes futile.

Welcome to the thoughtpocalypse

Here’s the thing. When we stop thinking about God, we don’t stop thinking. We can’t stop thinking. But instead of our thoughts leading us to thanksgiving, joy and wonder, they lead us somewhere else.

We become anxious. Fearful. Worried. Tormented. Self-loathing when we should be self-loving.

I believe this is the challenge of our generation. We have fallen victim to the thoughtpocalypse.

The word apocalypse is often explained this way: apo, to see, and calypse, the end. To see the end. And that’s exactly what happens in our heads. In our thoughts, we see the end of the world.

• Every setback is going to destroy us.
• Every bit of rejection means we’re useless.
• Every sickness means we’re going to die.

When I set up a meeting with someone, I’ve learned to say it straight away, jokingly: “It’s about your attitude.” Because I know what happens otherwise. The moment I say I want to meet, they start running through every negative reason I could possibly want to see them. By the time we sit down, they’ve already lived through the end of the world.

The greatest challenges many of us face aren’t out there. They’re in here. Depression. Despair. Anxiety. Melancholy. They are challenges of the mind.

God’s thoughts toward you are not tormenting thoughts

Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life, and life in all its fullness” (John 10:10). He does not want your mind plagued by the thoughtpocalypse.

Listen to how God thinks about you:

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV)

• Peace: calm and secure.
• A future: dreams and plans.
• A hope: optimistic and confident.

That’s the way God intended you and me to think.

So go back to Romans 1. Paul says their thinking became futile. It was once alive. Now it’s futile. How? Verse 21 tells us: they stopped glorifying God and stopped giving thanks.

Stop thinking about God, and your thinking becomes futile. Start thinking about God, and your thinking fills up with opportunity and potential.

No God in my thoughts

• Futile
• Empty
• Vain
• Foolish

God-oriented thoughts

• Alive
• Full
• Purposeful
• Wise

Worship tunes the mind

In 2016 I was walking through a really challenging season. Around that time I flew to Birmingham, Alabama, and I remember standing in a room while they sang “Unstoppable God” by Elevation Worship.

Right up until that moment, all my thoughts had been about the difficulty. The challenge. Maybe everything is going to come tumbling down.

Then we worshipped. And my thoughts filled with faith, confidence and peace.

No one has ever stood in an environment of worship and walked away more discouraged.

Here’s why. Worship is a mind, a set of thoughts, that is centred on Christ. Worship is the ultimate use of the mind.

Old car, new car

Think about an old car. Beat up. Rusty. The kind of car that makes you pray the prayer of Samson every morning: “Just one more time, Lord.”

You drink your breakfast smoothie on the way because you can’t risk being late. You plan your route around traffic lights so you never have to stop. And when you finally pull into the car park, you feel like a survivor. You might get somewhere. It’s possible. But it isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t guaranteed.

Now think about a new car. Something German. You don’t even need a key, you just press a button. You take the long way to work because you want to. You have this sense that you could go anywhere and do anything.

The difference? The new car works the way it was created to work. It’s still tuned to the designer’s original intention.

When a mind is tuned to God every waking moment, it’s set for the highest performance possible. Like an engine tuned to perfection, so is a mind filled with thoughts centred on God.

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” – but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:9–10)

When we align our thoughts on the Lord, we open our minds to what God wants to reveal.

There is a battle for your thoughts

The devil is our accuser. Jesus is our intercessor. And the fight between those two voices happens in your mind.

Revelation 12:10 calls the devil “the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night.” In Zechariah 3:1 we see him standing right next to Joshua the high priest, ready to accuse him.

You experience that accusation in your thoughts. Accusations:

• diminish you
• remind you of your failures
• sentence you
• feel like the end
• rob you of hope

The devil deals in freeze frames, not motion pictures. He picks your lowest moment and replays it over and over again.

But look at what Jesus is doing:

“Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” (Romans 8:34)

Hebrews 7:25 says he “always lives to intercede for them.” Right now, today, Jesus is praying for you.

An intercessor stands in the gap between your current reality and your future potential. Intercession:

• shows us things to come
• removes our shame
• inspires us to believe
• lifts us above our setback

God isn’t showing you reruns of the past. He’s showing you previews of the future.

So here’s a simple test. You can discern the source of a thought by where the thought is leading. If it’s leading you to shame, fear and the end of the world, you know who’s talking. If it’s leading you to hope, you know who’s praying.

How to get out, and how to stay out

If you want to escape the thoughtpocalypse, it starts here:

“…take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Gillian once said our thoughts can become “like errant children skittering off in their own direction.” That’s exactly it. Our thoughts need to be rounded up, captured, and made obedient to Jesus Christ.

What gets you out

The most highlighted verse in the Bible App is Philippians 4:6–7. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Prayer. Petition. Thanksgiving. That’s what gets you out of the thoughtpocalypse. Notice that thanksgiving is right there, the very thing Romans 1 said we’d stopped doing.

What keeps you out

What keeps you out is the very next verse:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)

Every thought disciplined in this direction moves you towards a mind like a fine German automobile. It’s like putting on noise-cancelling headphones on a loud plane. The noise is still there. You just don’t have to listen to it anymore.

You think on purpose

“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:2)

The Greek idea here is to direct your mind. We don’t think by chance. We think by purpose.

Friend, you and I can have a different thought life to the one we have right now. Your mind is not stuck. It can be renewed.

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2 NLT)

So today, start small. Look up. Find something to be thankful for. Glorify God as God. Take that next thought captive.

The end of the world isn’t coming. A future and a hope is.

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