So I learnt that one of the things it was helpful to do was instead of trying to fight the thought, address the thought and confront it. Just confront it and speak it's unwelcome. Hold the blood of Jesus Christ over it. It's a persistent one cut off any attachment that I may have had to it and then just curse the thought tree that gives it a place to sit. I've found it quite effective to just [psst, 00.43.53] it's gone, just gone like that, and then redirect your attention somewhere else. So one aspect of developing our capacity to see is cutting off the stuff we don't want to see and fasting helps, and cleansing your mind with the word of God helps as well. The the second thing then is to actually learn to focus your attention as you - and these are two things you can do to help you develop. One of them is as you pray in tongues and your spirit is flowing, begin to focus your attention on some things you're praying about and consciously look at them.
Now so for example I'm praying for my wife. Well then I'd begin to picture my wife, lift her before the Lord, speaking things: Lord, I just lift Joy before You right now. I thank You for her, and I just begin to pray for her. Now as I pray in tongues for her I begin to hold the picture of her in my imagination, looking to see if God wants to open up and show anything around her or around our marriage that I need to know about, and it'll come by way of a picture or impression, just starts to come and you suddenly become aware of something. So as you pray, focussing your attention when you pray is quite important. Many people can't focus their attention very long, so there's something that you can do to do that. So one is praying during prayer time; another is pray as you go to sleep. You just pray Lord, I just begin to set my mind on You, meditate on a scripture, meditate on Him and as you're going and dropping off to sleep say thank You Lord, I open my inner man for You to speak to me through dreams tonight. That's one way of doing it.
Here's another thing that you can put into practice and that is meditating. I think of all the things that meditation, consciously meditating in the word of God is one of the most powerful ways to shift your inner man and to shift your inner life. It's spoken all over the Bible and meditation; meditation means to consciously use your imagination to roll over and repetition is the key. Repetition and impact, those are the keys in how strongly this thing impresses you, so let me just show you how it'll work or how I've done it. I've taken either a scripture passage with Jesus in it, or Psalm 23 or some other passage that talks about God, talks about His works, talks about who He is and what He's like. Many scriptures talk about what He's like, and then just pray in tongues for a little while and get the flow going. Then I may pray quietly in tongues, very quietly in tongues.
While I'm doing that I allow my imagination to begin to try to picture the details, and so what you could do then is just take a story from the Bible like I did it this morning. Just take this story here and I'll show you what you could do. Now in Luke 7:11-15 it happened that He went to a city called Nain. The word Nain, I looked it up and it just means pleasant, beautiful, a lovely happy place - and He went there and there was a whole of disciples there. So what I would do is this. I read the story through several times. I can tell you what's in the story, I know what's in the story. Jesus got a huge crowd, He's going from one place to another and He happens to go through a town called Nain, and it means beautiful and fruitful. And as He comes there He begins to see a huge crowd coming out of the city. He's going into the city; a crowd is coming out of the city and it's not a happy crowd.
It's a crowd of mourners. He knows they're mourners because they're all wailing and sobbing and crying. This is a large crowd, so He's got a crowd coming His way. There's another crowd coming the other way. Jesus is about to connect with them just like that, and as they come there He sees that they're carrying something. They're carrying an open kind of coffin. They've got like a stretcher and there's a young man all wrapped up. He's dead, and his mother ought - obvious who the mother is, she's dressed in black. She's right behind him and she's weeping, and around her is everyone else is all weeping. There is a lot of weeping, a lot of wailing and this woman, it's her only son and she's a widow. So that means - you need to get the facts of the story - only son and widow. So there it is, and this is what it says. Jesus is moved with compassion. Now I want you just to [say it 00.47.56] and what did He do? Well He did unthinkable. He touched a dead body. No one ever touched a dead body.