Whenever I’m in trouble spiritually, I have a mixture of true and false in my existing beliefs and thinking.
I ask God to set aside any/all existing notions I have about anything. Setting something aside simply means putting it up on a shelf, out of reach. Anything real and true will be returned to me by God in due course. Whenever ‘old thinking’ (i.e. current thinking!) comes into my mind, I gently and persistently imagine it floating up to a glass bowl full of clear water on a shelf. The idea drops into the water, dissolves, and disappears. In particular, anything troubling is ‘sent up to the bowl’.
Obviously, whilst I am setting aside, life needs to continue. I ask God to help me to maintain life support systems, in other words to do what I need to do today to (a) look after myself (b) fulfil practical obligations and (c) enjoy a few things. I am to do these things under God’s guidance, like someone who cannot fly being guided to land the plane under the guidance of air traffic control, without engaging intellectually in the content. Do what must be done, and no more.
This gives me space to do the internal work with God to recast my beliefs, and from there to rebuild.
I ask God to set aside any/all existing notions I have about anything. Setting something aside simply means putting it up on a shelf, out of reach. Anything real and true will be returned to me by God in due course. Whenever ‘old thinking’ (i.e. current thinking!) comes into my mind, I gently and persistently imagine it floating up to a glass bowl full of clear water on a shelf. The idea drops into the water, dissolves, and disappears. In particular, anything troubling is ‘sent up to the bowl’.
Obviously, whilst I am setting aside, life needs to continue. I ask God to help me to maintain life support systems, in other words to do what I need to do today to (a) look after myself (b) fulfil practical obligations and (c) enjoy a few things. I am to do these things under God’s guidance, like someone who cannot fly being guided to land the plane under the guidance of air traffic control, without engaging intellectually in the content. Do what must be done, and no more.
This gives me space to do the internal work with God to recast my beliefs, and from there to rebuild.