"One of the biggest hindrances to an effective prayer life is the problem of mind wandering. How do we cope with this vexing problem?
"When the mind wanders, let the thing to which it wanders become the focus of your praying. For instance, as I was writing this line I looked out of the window and saw the Concorde fly past. For a few minutes my thoughts began to wander and then remembering my own advice I began to focus on the crew and passengers of the plane. I asked God to keep them safe and to give everyone on board an understanding of His love for them as expressed in the Cross. My mind wandered, but in the end it wandered to God.
"If you are beset by wandering thoughts, perhaps even evil thoughts, then instead of wrestling with them, use them as a prayer focus. A man I know was afflicted by evil thoughts the moment he got down to prayer. Lustful images would rise unbidden into his mind. Unable to cope with the problem he gave up on his prayer life and soon he came for counselling - defeated and downcast. He was shown how to take each lustful thought and use it to God's ends. This is how it was done.
"When a lustful thought entered his mind he was advised not to push it from his mind but to picture Christ standing with him, looking on the image in his mind. He would then, in his imagination, turn to Christ and pray along this line: 'Lord, you can see this image that is before me. I know it comes from the part of my nature that is carnally inclined. Sex was designed by you to be beautiful and clean, but in my thoughts it has become defiled and impure. Fill my imagination with such a picture of You that it will take up the whole perspective of my thoughts.' As this man learned to focus his imagination on Jesus and use these moments to develop a conversation with Christ, he found, after a while, that whereas before he was unable to dismiss the thoughts with a peremptory word, they were now elbowed out by the vision of Jesus that he held in his mind. Christ is the centre of all things pure.
"Any Christian, bent on winning the battle over evil thoughts, can by using the method I have described above, outmanoeuvre the problem in a few weeks, or at the most a few months. ... you will be able to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ."
From: Selwyn Hughes
15 Ways to a More Effective Prayer Life
There are 5 days of our 40 days left. I will post the last two principles as well as a summary in this time. In the meantime, please gather your thoughts and make an effort to leave some comments of your experiences during the 40 days. Of course you don't have to wait until the 28th before commenting - go for it right now :)>
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