Problem:
Reply to this discussion by assertions with at least one recent scholarly citation (three years) and one biblical citation. The post should be a thoughtful analysis, strengths-based feedback, and personal insights. Responses further the discussion by providing additional information, a challenge, or encouragement for further growth.
I have a tendency to catastrophize when things deviate from the expected. For example, my wife is a flight attendant. When I don't hear from her in what a deem a reasonable time frame after she's supposed to have landed and deplaned, I start to think the worst. All the delays native to the airline industry facilitate this distortion, but I use prayer and faith to combat my catastrophic thoughts.
Another cognitive distortion to which I fall prey often is labeling. Naoumidis (2025) uses an apt example thought: "'I'm a failure' instead of 'I failed that time.'" This is something I struggle with regarding my fiction writing, and it discourages me from submitting stories more often.
Another mind trap that trips me up sometimes is emotional reasoning, assuming that the way I feel validates the existence of some nonexistent danger. An example of this is when I was traveling cross country with my brother, and I started to get nervous and agitated without cause. We both assumed that something must have been happening to our families, so we pulled over and called them. They were fine.
Emotional reasoning is a tricky one because I believe God can reveal what would otherwise be unknown to us to help us avoid and/or resolve difficulties, what I tend to call "listening to the Spirit" because of the Spirit's ability to "teach you all things," not just those things strictly necessary for eternal life (King James Bible, 1979/2015, John 14:26). This adds another facet to the mind trap, making "spirit traps" possible by believing God may have revealed something that is instead rooted in what is wanted rather than what is true. It is therefore essential to be careful to weigh anything one might suspect is revelation against the scriptures, discounting anything that contradicts Christ's doctrine. This demonstrates the inherent instability of any individual's thought life; the Spirit can reveal what is true, and what is true is true regardless of our perception or interpretation of it. Our goal as Christians is to seek spiritual stability through the grounding principles of Christ's doctrine, which attempt to teach a reality not fully graspable by the limitations of human intellect. The ten commandments, summarized by our Lord as the two great commandments (King James Bible, 1979/2015, Mat. 22:37-40), show what the focus of our thought life should be: Honoring God and respecting our fellows through a life of intentional, devoted service in the name of Christ. Any actions or thought patterns on our part that are contrary to the Lord's revealed Will threaten our spiritual stability, causing cognitive dissonance and distortion until we repent and reconcile our will once more to God's. It is a rocky, continuing process precisely because of our physical and mental imperfections. Need Assignment Help?