Intrusive Thoughts & Gospel Hope

Intrusive thoughts are a silent struggle for a growing number of people I talk with. Not that I think that more and more people are struggling with intrusive thoughts; I’m just hearing it from more people who, after knowing me for a long enough period of time, are willing to open up about it.

An intrusive thought, according to Harvard Health, is “a strange, disturbing thought or a troubling image that pops into your mind. It might be violent or sexual, or a recurring fear that you’ll do something inappropriate or embarrassing.” According to some research, almost everybody has some kind of experience with thoughts like this at some point, and many people are able to brush them off and move on.

Others respond with concern and worry (“Is there something wrong with me?”), and the attention they pay to the thought prolongs its rent-free stay in their mind. Or, by working hard to not think that thought, they make it even harder to ignore—like the classic example of trying not to think about elephants.

In my experience, Christians—especially those with particularly sensitive consciences—are at a unique risk of overreacting to intrusive thoughts, given their beliefs about the content of those thoughts. When a Christian has a violently sexual thought pass through their mind unbidden, it’s harder for them to think “that was weird,” and move on. It’s easier for them to wonder things like,

“Was that Satan? Can he plant thoughts in my mind? If so, am I ever safe from him?”
“Was that me? Did I sin just by having that thought? People would be horrified—what must God think?”
“If that thought came from me, is that an actual desire in my heart? What if I’m actually going to do what I imagined? How can I stop it from happening if the thought itself is too horrible to even talk to someone about?”

The Urge to Jump and the Will to Live

While researching intrusive thoughts, I was fascinated by a study on “high place phenomenon” (PDF), the author’s term for the “sudden urge to jump when in a high place,” a common example of an intrusive “thought [that] can seem to come out of the blue.”¹

According to their research, and affirmed by subsequent studies, high place phenomenon is widely experienced by those with no other history or presentation of suicidal desires. In these cases, the authors suggest that what’s happening relates to our brain’s “fear circuitry”: finding ourselves in a dangerous situation, our brain tells us we’re in danger, and we back away from the edge before we’re fully aware of what’s taken place. “It is not until moments later, when the person tries to understand his or her behavior, that the individual’s slower perceptual system kicks in and potentially misattributes the safety signal (‘Getting too close, back up’) to a death wish involving heights.”² Thus, rather than anything to be concerned about, “experiencing this phenomenon may have the counter-intuitive effect of affirming one’s will to live.”³

Whether this specific explanation is correct or not, the study did reveal a correlation between the experience of high place phenomenon and sensitivity to fear or anxiety. Put simply, the more prone to fear a person is, the more likely they are to have this experience—and be bothered by it afterwards.⁴ This lines up with other evidence that people who are more fear-prone tend to “misinterpret innocuous bodily sensations as threatening.”⁵

The Engine of Fear

Fear is the engine here, as it takes Murphy’s Law and makes it personal: if something terrible can happen, not only is it going to happen, but it’s going to happen to me. This is why our heads feel itchy when we hear about a lice outbreak. It’s what makes us worried, ever since a friend died of cancer, that every ache and pain is a fresh tumour in our own body.

And perhaps it’s the case that when we find ourselves staring danger in the face—such as the 27-story drop over the balcony railing, or the five-foot swerve between us and the oncoming semi truck—the bad ending seems so inevitable, so certain, that it feels easier to surrender than to resist. And now that we’ve felt that urge, we have something new to worry about: not just the fear of falling, but the fear that we’re the kind of person who actually wants to fall to our death.

It does seem to me that a similar set of mechanics is at work in the broader experience of intrusive thoughts. The content of these thoughts—harming a child, being unfaithful to a spouse—are no less terrifying to consider than jumping off a balcony. Nor is the fearful prospect that you are the kind of person who just had that thought, and keeps on having that thought, and what does that say about you?

The more these fears are meditated on, the more they grow, and before long people can be convinced that they’re actually going to hurt themselves or others, or that they’re losing their mind, or that they are a particularly wicked sinner with no hope of salvation, or some combination of these and other awful possibilities.

This worst-case scenario thinking is particularly evident in fears about the “unforgivable sin” (Matthew 12:31), which for some Christians has the macabre draw of a balcony railing in a tall building. It might start by wanting to know what it is so they can be sure they haven’t done it, but then, knowing what it is, the sense of terrified inevitability grows, and the urge to commit it feels irresistible. Awful words may form in their minds, and they may be convinced that they’re already and hopelessly damned.

How to Fight Back

If we’re on the right track that fear itself is the engine—and the fuel—for intrusive thoughts, then what’s the solution? We know that paying them more attention doesn’t work; that only gives them more life. Simply ignoring them and refusing to take them seriously can be effective for some people. But even if this works, it might miss out on the chance to deal with the real root: fear.

I’m increasingly convinced that behind the experience of intrusive thoughts lies a set of deeply held fears about ourselves, our place in the world, and our relation to God. Fears like,

What if I sin in a spectacular way? How do I know I won’t? I’m terrified of hurting others.
I’m so horrified by my thoughts; is there any safe place for me, if not in my own head?
What if this is the devil?
Am I even a Christian, given these things I’m struggling with? What if I’m self-deceived and lost for eternity? How disappointed—or disgusted—must God be with me?
I’m so embarrassed and ashamed of the things I’ve thought. I’m such a hypocrite and faker. If people knew who I was on the inside, I’d be rejected and left all alone.
What if the worst-case scenario really is going to happen to me? When?

These fears cannot just be ignored. They must be killed with the sword of the Spirit (Eph 5:17). And there’s perhaps no better in the Bible to go than Romans 8 for weaponry against these fears—and the fearsome thoughts they give life to.

What if I sin in a spectacular way? How do I know I won’t? I’m terrified of hurting others. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom 8:29).

I’m so horrified by my thoughts; is there any safe place for me, if not in my own head? “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Rom 8:34).

What if this is the devil? “For I am sure that neither… nor angels nor rulers… nor powers… nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38–39).

Am I even a Christian, given these things I’m struggling with? What if I’m self-deceived and lost for eternity? “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?” (Rom 8:33).

How disappointed—or disgusted—must God be with me? “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” “…him who loved us” (Rom 8:32, 37)

I’m so embarrassed and ashamed of the things I’ve thought. I’m such a hypocrite and faker. If people knew who I was on the inside, I’d be rejected and left all alone. “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31).

What if the worst-case scenario really is going to happen to me? “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us… And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose… Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? …No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Romans 8:18, 28, 35, 37–39).

Fear can’t get a word in edgewise in the face of promises like this. Like we heard from Habakkuk on Sunday, these promises enable us to stare our worst-case scenario fears in the face and say, “What then? What changes? Nothing permanent.”

The death of Jesus on the cross for us, and the eternal promises He bought for us there, have ripped the teeth out of our worst fears. If we fall off the building, we go to heaven. If people find out about our deepest secrets, our Heavenly Father’s love for us won’t change, and 10,000 years from now, that’s all that’s going to matter. If the bad thing happens, God is going to use it for our good, and it’s not going to come between us and Him.

So Christian, read these promises. More importantly, believe these promises. Really believe what they say. Let them shine the light on your fears and reveal them as the weak and hollow things they are. Meditate daily on the scope and scale of all that God is for you in Christ, and find that your fears have less and less power to terrify you, overwhelm you, or even hold your attention.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus; your fears are one thing that certainly will grow dim in the light of His glory and grace.