Once on a flight, I was reading a book on my iPad and got a notification that someone was trying to share a picture with me. Since I didn’t know anyone else on the flight, I assumed it was a mistake and declined the request. But the alert kept coming. Unsure whether the intent was malicious or someone’s idea of a joke, I continued to decline. Eventually I realized I could turn off Bluetooth on my device to ensure I was no longer disturbed.
Later, it struck me that we can deal with suggestions of sickness or pain the same way. We are often presented with images of health problems. Of course, these would be easier to spot if there were a notification stating, “The carnal mind wants to share an image with you.” However, even without this warning, we know that suggestions of illness are not coming from God, because God does not create sickness. The suggestions are therefore unreal. No matter how persistent they appear, we must refuse to view them. And simply denying them is not enough. As in the situation with my iPad, those annoying alerts keep coming until we make ourselves unavailable to them.
How do we do that? By praying. Affirming the truth about the perfection of God and God’s creation is the spiritual equivalent of turning off Bluetooth so we are no longer available for false suggestions to bombard our thought. The more we keep our thoughts on God, the more obvious the falsity of these suggestions becomes, and the easier it is to dismiss them as unreal.
