Obsessive Self-Destructive Thoughts

When it was told Saul, he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied. And Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they also prophesied. 1 Samuel 19:21

When I came home from treatment back in 2014, I knew that I’d found a lasting recovery. Understandably, my wife wasn’t convinced. She needed time – a lot of time – to see radical change before she’d start believing. Fifteen years of drug use and lying wasn’t undone in a few weeks. Being the impatient person that I am, I wanted to repair our relationship immediately. This was unhelpful. My wife needed time. Because I’m uncomfortable with conflict though, I obsessed about the distance between us, trying repeatedly to repair it. The more I tried, the worse I made things. The worse things got, the more I obsessed, lying awake at night with circular thoughts playing in my head, fueling my anxiety.

What I needed to do, was to work on myself. That was the only fix to our relationship – to find recovery. Eventually, for the sake of my own mental health, I figured it out. I had to repeatedly abandon those obsessive thoughts because they simply weren’t helpful. Wanting to repair my marriage wasn’t a bad thing, but ruminating about it fed my anxiety and pushed my wife away. So, for my own mental health, and for the health of our marriage, I had to figure out how to abandon my neurotic thinking and get to work on my faith and recovery.

Saul, in today’s passage, illustrated a similar obsessive, self-destructive pattern of thinking. Jealous of David’s success, Saul wanted him dead. This became a thought that Saul simply couldn’t let go. Though his son and daughter both tried to convince him otherwise, Saul just couldn’t surrender this dark obsession. In today’s story, Saul discovered where David was hiding and sent men to capture him. These men had a profound religious experience, failing to carry out their mission. So, Saul sent more men, who had the same experience. Despite God obviously foiling Saul’s plans repeatedly, Saul just couldn’t stop trying to kill David.

Most of you won’t struggle with a drug addiction as I have. Most of us though, are familiar with obsessive, intrusive, self-destructive thoughts. For some of you, this is your addiction – that thing that you keep doing despite the toll it’s taken on your mental health. Trying to sleep, these thoughts just keep popping back in your head, fueling your insomnia and anxiety. So, what do we do with these thoughts?

Some of us may need professional therapy, but I found freedom in working on myself, seeking God and his will for my life. This took me to jail Bible study, where, in service to those less fortunate than me, I was able to get out of my own head. What didn’t work, was simply trying to stop thinking about it. For me, I had to get up, seek God’s will, and do something. That’s how I got out of my own head and that’s how I interrupted the obsessive, unhelpful thoughts.