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Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. 6 Recognize Him in all your ways, and he will make your paths straight.

Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Distraction. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Distraction. Sort by date Show all posts

Thursday, February 6, 2020

The "Here and Now" and the Presence of God

The "Here and Now" is where we pay attention. To pay attention means to consciously focus on one aspect of that which we are aware.

We can be aware of many things in the here and now and still not pay attention to them.

Definition: the process whereby a person concentrates on some features of the environment to the (relative) exclusion of others.

"Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention

"Attention is the cognitive process that makes it possible to position ourselves towards relevant stimuli and consequently respond to it. This cognitive ability is very important and is an essential function in our daily lives."
https://www.cognifit.com/attention

"Attention is a complex cognitive function which is essential for human behavior. Attention is a selection process for an external (sound, image, smell...) or internal (thoughts) event which has to be maintained at a certain level of awareness. It is not a stable but rather, fluctuating skill."

http://www.happy-neuron.com/brain-and-training/attention

From all this information we begin to understand that paying attention takes conscious effort.

Two Bible verses come to mind…

Romans 8:14 All that are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God.

John 10:27  My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

And this one…

Matthew 10:19 When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.

These verses speak of the present-tense indicative verb of paying attention to the Holy Spirit in the here and now. Not just acknowledging God's presence but recognizing Him and "choosing" to pay attention and to engage in your relationship with Him.

The enemy does not want you to do that. He will use distraction by trying to get you to focus, not on the present situation I call the "Here and Now" but on the past using condemnation/hopelessness or the future using speculation/fear... Or both.

Reality does not exist in the future or in the past.

We exist and have our being in the "Here and Now". It is where we make our choices and decisions that will shape our future. Do you trust in your limited perspective and understanding in your situation, or will you choose to pay attention to the Lover of your Soul and trust in His Guidance and Counsel? "Now" is the time, and "here" is the place we create the future God wants us to have.

Philippians 3:12 (NLT) I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.

Proverbs 3:5 (CEV) With all your heart you must trust the LORD and not your own judgment. 6 Always let him lead you, and he will clear the road for you to follow.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

The Open View of God and Time

The Open view of God seems to work for me. What I mean, from what I understand of it, and how I view the meaning of certain scriptures, that the Open View of God uses, I kind of think... yeah, that makes sense.

I'm not one that came to Christ because it made a lot of sense. God broke into my situation, made Himself known to me, promised to give me a new life and asked if I would trust Him as my Savior. I was desperate, so I agreed. He then told me He needed to be my Lord to make it happen. I said ok.

Along the way He has transformed my thinking. I had a lot of baggage that I was hanging on to. False idea’s, concepts, attitudes and desires that had been carried over from my old life and the lies I lived by. I'm still in process and it seems God is hopeful, He hasn't given up on me.

Well back to the Open View of God. It put into words what I kind of thought already. I liked how it affirms my free will. How it focuses my responsibility to work with God. It seems that it also says God is in time. I can't imagine anything outside of time but I didn't know what time was. So I set out to understand time.

If you google "the meaning of time", well let's just say there is a lot of opinions. I found some really interesting things when I added "Physics" to the search of "the meaning of time". Then I tried "Time and Quantum Mechanics". After months of investigation I've come up with my own opinion for the meaning of time...

TIME IS AN ILLUSION (DON'T LET THIS BE A DISTRACTION FROM THE GIST OF MY BLOG). Let me explain. How do we know that time passes? Because we remember when things were different and we call it the past. We think of the future because we can anticipate how things will be different. The observer recognizing change brought about by movement is only possible because of memory. Reason can anticipate change and the mind imagines the future.This all happens in the present now which is "Eternity". Eternity is held together by God who allows all the movement.

I don't have to speculate about how long a moment is. They don't exist. I don't have to spend time wondering about time travel. I'm already there.

God said "Let there be Light" and everything began moving. Everything moving in relationship to everything else. The movement is sequential and in one direction. It's a great illusion.

Friday, December 24, 2021

The battle for our Attention?

WIKIPEDIA: Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. William James (1890) wrote that "Attention is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence."[1] Attention has also been described as the allocation of limited cognitive processing resources.[2] 

Attention is manifested by an attentional bottleneck, in terms of the amount of data the brain can process each second

The weapon of spiritual warfare against attention is "distraction"...

Do you ever think about your thoughts? Have you ever wondered why you argue with yourself?

2 Cor. 10:3-5 MEV 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, 5 casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

IDEA - noun.  any conception existing in the mind as a result of mental understanding, awareness, or activity.      a thought, conception, or notion:


Saturday, January 15, 2011

Free will.

Free will has no meaning if we don't understand the consequence of our choices.

Satan is a liar. That is the truth I knew as I began my quest to discover what time was.

Truth is simple once discovered. But the quest for truth is nothing but complicated. The father of lies doesn't want us to know the truth.

The simple truth is found in Christ. He reveals creation as it was intended. Complication is the work of the enemy of our soul.

Our choices create tensed facts that build up or destroy. Distraction is meant to blind us to the truth of our choices. Pride keeps us in the fantasy.