5 Lies of Magical Thinking That Hurt Christian Progress

When I was probably five or six years old, I had been told that God can do anything. And I knew that was true, and it is, but as a five- or six-year-old, I thought that that meant he would do anything the way I asked and assumed it would be done. And one day I was told to clean up my toys. I can still imagine what the room looked like. I mean, I can see it in my mind's eye, and I had a Raggedy Ann and Andy toy box that was over to the left of the room and to the right was the door. And I can see my parents standing there saying, hey, you need to clean up these toys that are on the floor. And I was like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to clean up my toys. I don't want to have to do that work. So, I sat on my bed, in the center of my bed, and I looked over at the toy box and I looked at the toys and I let God know that I wanted my room clean, and I really expected that God was going to clean my room for me.

I really did. I sat there and I thought toys were going to start magically floating through the air and into the toy box. Now remember, I was a 70s kid, so there's the television show Bewitched, and I don't know if it was in reruns or actually running at that time, but there was a witch with a young daughter and the witch could make things happen in this family, but she was portraying as a suburban housewife. So, I probably thought, well, that's what God can do. He can just make things float through the air and do what I want them to do.

I had this magical thinking, right? I thought that my understanding would cause something to happen, and of course belief and faith can definitely influence outcomes and God honors that and hears the prayers of his kids, but there are ways that we take cause and effect as if they are actually things that work that way simply because we feel they do, or they're correlated in some way. They kind of seem like this caused that or this didn't happen because of that, or it did happen because of that, and they just don't have any basis in scientific truth or fact and in the real world. So, meaning the material present day world where we are able to look at things. I looked up "magical thinking" online for a description, and one definition kind of gives the way that I want to talk about it today. It's the belief that one's ideas, thoughts, actions or words or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world. It presumes a causal link between one's inner personal experience and the external physical world. So, this is from the Encyclopedia Britannicaonline.com just give due where it came from, and now there is a cause and effect sometimes between our thoughts and our actions.

Like we reap what we sow, right? If I save money, I'm going to have money in the bank. If I spend everything I have, I'm not going to have money in the bank. So, our actions can influence the course of events in the actual world that we live in. And there is faith and prayer in that what we ask, what we hope for, we can trust in God with faith and God listens and He is a good father who provides good things for his kids. Okay? But it's when we try to make these connections that actually aren't true that they can lie to us.

So, in the mental health clinical kind of world, if we put it into that, it could be something like the obsessive-compulsive disorder which is an anxiety-based disorder that people try to feel safer by having a sense of control over something when they feel anxious, and so that leads them if they have the OCD tendencies to do something over and over to try to alleviate the tension of something bad happening. For instance, if someone's afraid of their kid driving the car and afraid they're going to get in an accident, they may have anxiety come up and they may go and turn on and off the light switch so many times to think that that's going to prevent their kid from having a wreck. The magical thinking there is that their action of worrying and moving the light switch up and down actually affects whether their kid is safe or not. Also, the fact that they're worried about their kid being safe, they might equate to the fact that their kid is in danger, but their kid isn't in any more danger than they actually are. They're either safe or they're in an accident, but it has nothing to do with the level of worry of that parent. So, we need to be careful to kind of notice the thinking we are accidentally falling into as Christian believers.

I have five lies that magical thinking can kind of try to come in with that seem rational, but I want to just point them out in case they can help you. So, again, we are not saying that prayer doesn't work or that God doesn't show up, or that we can't have faith and believe or that our actions don't have an impact on the results that we see. What I'm meaning is that those distortions that make it seem like you're doing something holy or something right, but they just don't connect. It doesn't cause that to be the case.

To give you one more piece of insight clinically as to what this can be like in the actual mental health field: I remember being in an internship situation where there was a group of people, and this one guy in the group had some psychosis and some schizophrenia type of disorder, and he sat there and basically told us very seriously one day that every room he walks into he can make people touch their nose. That he's just noticed this. And so, every room he goes into, people touch their nose because he walked into the room. Now, he really believed this. I almost either decided not to touch my nose or to touch it on purpose because I kind of just wanted to be like, want to prove this is right or wrong, and it's not because of you. I don't believe I did, but he really thought it. And sometimes these things get in there such that we really believe it. So, I'm going to call them out for you today within what I'm about to share.

5 Lies of Magical Thinking Christians Can Fall Into

1. The magical thinking that feelings equal facts is one fallacy. Like I used in one example, the fact that someone feels worried or is worried about something bad happening does not mean that there is a heightened danger that something bad is going to happen, or that if they don't worry, something bad will happen. It's not equated. Those feelings don't equal facts, and this is a common fallacy. It might be showing up something like, I feel God is mad at me, or I feel that I'm not good enough, or I feel that I'm going to be punished for something, or I feel that I have to keep suffering because that makes me more holy or humble or worthy or safer. That's just not the truth. That's magical thinking. It's not a cause and effect. It's simply often making you miserable and keeping you from walking into the freedom that God has for you.
2. You think you have to do things a certain way to avoid catastrophic results. Such as, well, I can't do that. What if I make a mistake or what if I'm not following God's will for me? I better not make a change in my life. I better not try for anything. Maybe I shouldn't go back to school. Maybe God doesn't want me to go back to school to get that degree. You know, as long as you are not going against anything that you know, God doesn't want you to do and you're not sinning. I want you to know the truth, that there's a lot of freedom in life. God gave us so many beautiful options and variety and He's the one who gave us the ability to imagine things, so we can think about what we would like to see, to think about what we could pray for, and to think about his goals of amazing things for us to step into. We have so much freedom when we think about even the variety. You may have heard me say this before about fruit, right? It's not a super spiritual decision whether you go into the grocery store and buy only bananas or buy bananas and apples or buy bananas, apples and oranges and you bring them home. It's not the super spiritual decision as to which one you have. Which one are you in the mood for? God gave you fruit. Make a choice. Enjoy. Be blessed. If you have a child who needs something, who wants something to eat, do you care whether they take the stuffing that's on the table or the ham or the rolls? I mean, you might, if they're like, hoarding the rolls or only eating pie or something like that. But I mean, if they're eating dinner, it doesn't matter how much they take of this or how much they take of that to the spoonful or anything like that. It's just you have it there. What would you like to eat? What are you in the mood for? What's going to nourish you? You have good things for your kids. You don't have to do things a certain way to avoid catastrophic results in fear that you're going to make mistakes or you, "rock the boat." That's not how God works. God is a God who has a great variety of things for you to step into. And you have the freedom as a child of God to enjoy this creation that God made for you to glorify Him. When you do that, it blesses Him. It leads people to see how joyful life can be because you appreciate the gifts of a good Heavenly Father.
3. You think we are being blessed because we have been good. So again, we do reap what we sow, right? You're going to be blessed. If you need money and you save money, right, you're going to have it there for that vacation or whatever. So there is that cause and effect. But while we do reap what we sow, God's ways are good, and they turn out best for us. So, we don't have to worry about whether we're good enough, but we can be blessed because of who God is, not because of who we are. Now, that doesn't mean intentionally sinning. He loves you and He's a good and loving father. You can't mess up who God is and His nature and how He loves you and cares for you and how He blesses you because of his capability to be a blesser simply by not feeling good enough or by feeling that you somehow made God be good to you because you were good enough. It's the same fallacy that messes with children's psyche when their parents are abusive, right? The children believe that they must be the cause of being treated so poorly and that can lead to them struggling with self-worth and confidence, but abuse of any kind is not because of the sin of the victim, it's because of the sin of the perpetrator. Since God is a loving daddy who wants good gifts for His kids, it's magical thinking that you need to earn His goodness. He is good. He gives good gifts. You are His. Just live loved.
4. Things are how it's been, so that's how it will always be. Assuming this cause and effect, I've never had success in life, so I'm not meant to have success and God doesn't have better for you. That's a lie. The Bible says that God has better for us than we could ask, think, or imagine, right? And while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. If He can do things even before we knew we were sinners, if He can do things that are good and bless us even more than we can ask or imagine, then doesn't it seem very unhelpful to think of things as never going to get better? As if God put you in this place in life and that's where you must be to serve Him? That's a magical thinking fallacy. That's a lie. Things will not get better for you in life because you choose to remain stagnant or because of the mindset that you have and the actions that you take, not because God doesn't want you to have more. He is a good God who gives good gifts to His kids beyond what you can ask or imagine. He'll show you great and mighty things that you don't know yet. So don't let that lie get in. Trust Him and trust His character.
5. Prayer is all you need. You just need to pray and trust, but you don't need to take any action. Because you're praying, that is going to cause the result. Praying does work, but it doesn't work like a magical spell. Like, I was waiting on my bed as a six-year-old for my toys to go in the toy box. I can't be like, hey, God, do it this way. I'll just wait here until it's done. See, I prayed. I have faith. You can do it. Absolutely. He could have made those toys just float into the box. He could have made the toys just disappear. He could have made the toys in the box, like, not even float past me. He could do all kinds of things. But why would He do that? That would not be teaching a child that she has to clean up after herself, that we should take care of what we've been given, to steward it well. It wouldn't build that self-discipline and confidence that I can control my actions and have good agency in my life, right? It wouldn't be beneficial to me. It doesn't mean that He would be punishing me. It doesn't mean that I shouldn't pray. Now there are times where there may be nothing you can do other than pray. That's fine. We're talking about the times where the magical thinking fallacy, that lie comes in that while I'm just praying, I'm waiting for it to happen. It's that same thing of someone saying they're praying because there's a flood and they're on the roof of their house and God, I'm just praying that you'll save me. And then a boat comes by and they're like, no, God will save me. And then a helicopter comes by, no God will save me, right? And then they die, and they get to heaven and they're like, God, I prayed for you to save me. He's like, I gave you a boat and a helicopter. Why didn't you jump on? Right? So how we look at things, God is strong enough to work in the natural world. He is strong enough in you. He lives in you and in Him you live and move and have your being. Don't over spiritualize. It is all spiritual, of course, in that you are God's, He is yours, and God is real, and He lives in your life, but that doesn't mean that even everyday life and practical words and steps aren't spiritual. We worship in the way we live our lives. We worship not just by singing. We worship by caring for other people. We worship by taking care of the things that have been entrusted to us. Being a good steward and trusting in God is not just prayer and wait and see what happens. The disciples went out. God told us to go out and make disciples of all nations, not sit home and just pray and never impact anybody. So, it's a lie and a fallacy to think, well, I'm just waiting for God to answer my prayer. He already wants to answer your prayer. It's good to actually take action, all right? Then finally that you could be out of God's protection by rocking the boat if you do take a step forward, thinking that now this is the final thing, right? And that kind of sums up a lot of these. It's like putting God in the position. The magical thinking is that you can change the character of God, right? That you can make him into something he isn't. A vindictive, hurtful God, a punitive God, a God who doesn't care and wants you to suffer untrue, or a limiting God, a God who's like up. You can only rise up so far. Don't go further than that. You'll get too big for your britches. No, those are all lies, okay? So, if you've been praying for victory with a mental or emotional struggle or relationship and it's time for that healing to happen, it's time to take action. Put your action steps where your prayer is. Put your faith into action. God is willing to take you to the next level of healing and abundant life. He cares about you. He's hearing your prayers.

He's led me to create this twelve-week coaching program that's going to open on October 23. The sign-ups are open now, and you can still get the early bird discount if you go in and register now. The doors are open for the twelve-week coaching program that I'm calling the Empowerment Oasis. It's a safe virtual space where you can reset, rest, regroup, evaluate, retool, and plan the steps you will take that line up with God's truth and direction for your life to get some healing power and victory for you. Basically, I'm going to teach you how to think on a higher level, to think like a therapist, to conceptualize, and also to ground that in biblical truth about you. Put it all together with support group coaching, individual access through voice app or email to me. Through the course of the program, you can ask questions, get the support, and get the instruction that you need through video modules, downloads and journaling pages. I really hope that you will take this seriously.

Invest in yourself. Invest in your healing. It will pay off for you for the rest of your life. If you want to get this valuable instruction and support and have me walk you through this powerful process to healing and the attainment of your goals, magic thinking isn't needed. Just take the step of faith. Go over to Mental Health for Christian Women, click the big orange letters to learn more, and I'll even hop on a free call with you to discuss your needs. Just go onto that page where you can click to schedule a free consult call to see if this is for you and how it might help you reach your goals or sign up. Go ahead and purchase your place in this cohort that's coming up at the end of October.

Also, I want to let you know that next week I'm going live on Instagram and Facebook with my trusty intern Mackenzie, and we're going to demonstrate anxiety management techniques and more of these amazing skills that are also in the Empowerment Oasis during lunchtime. And I'm going to coach Mackenzie, and she's going to be able to show you the example of how this works in real time. And you can practice right along with us so that you can take away actionable tips you can use immediately to reduce anxiety or gain a new mindset shift. It's all going to be there next week, so I hope you'll join us Monday through Friday at lunchtime. The dates are going to be on social media. So if you're not following us on social media right now, join us at Mental Health for Christian Women on Instagram and Facebook and you'll be alerted to that. Also, you can go to Mental Health for Christian Women and check out free resources, and that will put you into our email system so that you'll get the newsletter and that'll also give you the days and times and the topics are going to be really practical. I love to take the things that work and just give teaching and education knowledge.

This stuff isn't going to be counseling. It's going to be supportive education. It's going to be mentorship. It's going to be practical in nature so that you really have just amazing gains. Instead of waiting for things to happen and just processing and rehashing, we're going to actually dissect and strategize in this Empowerment Oasis program and then have you practice these new tools or implement them in effective ways. That's what this can offer you. So again, join us Mental Health for Christian Women, sign up for our Instagram, our Facebook, go to the landing page to sign up for the Oasis or book your discovery. Call with me to see if this is for you.

And I just hope you have a really great day! Know that God isn't trying to trick you. I want you to know that that there's no need for magical thinking, thinking that you're too good, too bad, need to do this or that, just don't sin. Love God and live loved. All right, go take on the day!