Sleep Better Tonight: Taking Your Thoughts Captive

Ever noticed how your exhausted body betrays you the moment your head hits the pillow? Danny Mac tackles this universal frustration in today's episode, offering both spiritual wisdom and practical advice for those nights when your mind races at 100 miles per hour despite your physical fatigue.
Drawing from 2 Corinthians 10:5, Danny unpacks what it truly means to "take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." With a vivid analogy of calf roping at a rodeo, he illustrates how we can lasso our runaway thoughts—those anxious worries about tomorrow's challenges or unfinished business that seem to accelerate just when we need rest the most. The image is powerful: just as a skilled cowboy can stop a charging calf in its tracks, we can learn to halt our racing minds and redirect them toward peace.
 As you face another night, remember you have the spiritual authority to stop anxious thoughts in their tracks and enter the rest God intends for you.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with
Danny Mac.
I'm going to be here everyMonday to Friday to help you get
a great five-minute start toyour day.
So grab your cup of coffee, sitback, relax and let me help you
start your day right.
How was your sleep last night?
No, seriously, it's.

(00:25):
How well did you sleep lastnight?
Most people I know are sayingthat they are not sleeping well
at all right now, and that's areal shame and it also is a real
problem.
Now, one of the things Idislike the most and this is
what usually happens to me whenI don't sleep is that I can be
up and I can be reading a bookor something before I go to bed
and I'm really, really tired,and so I put the book down, I

(00:49):
get ready for bed, I climb intobed and now, all of a sudden, I
am 100% awake, my body is readyto get up and go do something,
when just a few minutes ago, Iwas so tired.
It is like as soon as my headhits the pillow, my mind hits
the gas pedal and all of asudden it is now roaring and

(01:11):
every thought about everysituation and everything I'm
going through throughout the dayor that I will have to go
through tomorrow, comes racingback and racing through my mind
and causing me all kinds ofgrief.
Rarely are those thoughtspositive thoughts.
They're all worried abouthaving to get this done, having
to get that done.
What if this bad thing happens?

(01:31):
What if this doesn't work outthe way I need it to?
What if the pieces don't cometogether in this the way I'm
hoping it will?
And all of a sudden my mind isjust blazing down the road at
100 miles an hour and it's sofrustrating.
One of the things that I need todo is take this portion of
scripture from 2 Corinthians 10and verse 5 and be able to apply

(01:54):
it more effectively.
In my life I've known the truthof this scripture and I have
taught from the scripture anumber of times.
The truth of it can still eludeus if we're not careful.
Number of times the truth of itcan still elude us if we're not
careful.
It says this we demolisharguments and every pretension
that sets itself up against theknowledge of God, and we take
captive every thought to make itobedient to Christ.

(02:16):
Often the part that is soimportant in that particular
verse is the last portion, whereit says we take every thought
captive to make it obedient toChrist, we stop the thoughts
from running away from us sothat when our mind all of a
sudden starts to explode at ahundred miles an hour,
particularly in a direction wedon't want it to go, we need to

(02:38):
learn how to stop that and tobring it back to the place that
it should be.
In my mind I see it played outlike this have you ever seen
calf roping in a rodeo?
Where the calf breaks out ofthe stall and behind it comes
the cowboy on the horse wholassies the calf and the horse
stops when that calf comes tothe end of the rope, all of a
sudden it stops, it's thrown andit turns completely around and

(03:01):
comes to a dead stop.
Its momentum is completelycanceled.
And that's how I see what thisportion of scripture is trying
to tell us when it says to takeevery thought captive.
When our minds start to run atthat hundred miles an hour, we
need to be able to lasso it andto stop it, and to stop it right
there in its tracks, and wemust learn to make that happen

(03:22):
on a regular basis.
God promises that he will giveus rest, but he also tells us in
Romans, chapter 12, that wemust have our minds renewed.
We must learn to think in adifferent way.
Our thought processes have tobecome those that are more in
line with God than they are withthe world, and so that means we
have to learn to stop the oldthought processes from happening

(03:46):
, to bring us back in line withwhat God has for us and to stop
it in its tracks so that we canliterally take every thought
captive and make it obedient toChrist.
If we can do that and learn todo that effectively, we will
then learn how to stop our mindsfrom racing when we're trying
to get our rest and trying toget our sleep, and we will then
learn how to stop our minds fromracing when we're trying to get
our rest and trying to get oursleep, and we will then be able

(04:08):
to enter into the rest that Godhas for us.
So I hope you have a great day,gang, and I hope you have a
wonderful sleep tonight and knowthat when your mind starts to
take off on you, you can stop itin its tracks and find the
grace and peace of God to helpyou get through the night and to
sleep well.
Have a good day.
We'll talk to you tomorrow.

(04:29):
Thank you for listening todayand I invite you to join me
Monday to Friday, right here onStarting Right with Denny Mack.