Winning the War in Your Mind summary

In ancient times, when an army invaded an enemy city, they knew they had to capture the city’s stronghold. The stronghold was a guarded fortress, and it was where the enemy’s leaders would be hiding. Capture the stronghold, and you control the city. 

Sadly, when it comes to the war in your mind, many people adopt a losing strategy. When they set out to change an aspect of their lives, whether it’s quitting smoking or losing weight, they try to change their behavior. They eat less, for instance, or they simply don’t buy their next pack of cigarettes. 

Do you ever feel stuck in a mental rut? You want to make changes, but you can’t help doing the same negative things, over and over again.

You tell yourself that you’ll spend more time talking with your family, but you waste time on your phone all evening instead. Or you tell yourself that you’ll think more positively, but the next time you hit a minor setback you start thinking you’ll always be a victim. 

To win the war in your mind, you must identify the neural pathways that support your negative thoughts, and lay down new, helpful pathways in their place. Whereas the old pathways represented your mental rut and Satan’s lies, your new pathways will be your truth trench. 

You might think a rut and a trench don’t sound all that different, but think again. A rut is something slippery and dangerous that you fall into, whereas a trench is something you dig purposefully. It has meaning and it can change your life.

Imagine you’re about to go to a party with a friend. Just before you go inside, your friend tells you that everyone at the party thinks you're stupid. Throughout the evening, you see people joking around, and assume they’re laughing at you. 

After the party, your friend tells you she was just kidding, and that no one there thought you were stupid at all. Despite this confession, the lie she told ruined your night.

The author’s childhood dream was to play professional baseball. By the time he was in eighth grade, he was the star of his little league team, and it was starting to look as if his dream might come true. 

But then disaster struck. The night before a big game, his fingers were crushed and broken by a fast ball. Traumatized by his experience, he didn’t venture back onto the pitch.

Have you ever felt like you’ve just had enough? Sure, you can deal with one thing going wrong, or maybe even two, but sometimes the problems in life just keep coming until you feel suffocated. 

In our darkest moments, we often shout out to God, and all we want is for Him to shout back and let us know that He’s there. But God doesn’t shout, He whispers. You need to take a moment to be quiet so that you can hear Him.