Visualization for change

[Lou Zion]

The Bible says that without a vision the people perish.  And Philippians 4:8 talks about what we should think on.  We also know from neuroscience that visualization can be a powerful tool.  And for those who know, imagery must be positive since that's how the brain stores information.  For example, one cannot have an image of NOT being something or NOT doing something.  When I say "don't visualize a brick", you naturally visualize a brick.  So negative visualization does not work.

I've suffered from some major health issues for a long time , and it's been difficult to 'see' myself as healed.  So, I want to practice visualization to change my self-image so that I can believe I am healed by the stripes of Jesus.

I am asking for visualization ideas from others.  As background, I have been a Christian (Pentecostal) for 40 years and I've studied the Bible the whole time. I am a committed Christian and take God's Word as fact.

1) In my mind's eye, how can I visualize myself as healed?  In particular, I suffer from PTSD (amongst other conditions).  How can I visualize myself as healed and not affected by the triggers?  I am not able to visualize the triggers, because they trigger me and reinforce the trauma!

2) How can I visualize God's Word as truth?  I need to get it from my head to my heart.  I want to increase my faith and believe in my heart of hearts all things written in God's word.  I want to ensure I have faith when I pray that my prayers will be answered because God has given me His infallible promise, and I want to visualize this truth.

3) How can I visualize God answering prayer?

All these things I want to visualize are designed to increase my faith and trust God despite all I've endured.  I trust God with my head and I'm good at apologetics, but I need that faith that I know that I know that I know.

Thank you for the ideas!

Edited January 10, 2018 by Lou Zion

[Willa]

It is better to trust in the Living God.  It is He who heals.  Try trusting Him for little things.  I always pray when I misplace things and usually He helps me find them immediately.  Last night I couldn't find the dog's medicine.  It was not where i usually kept it.  When I went to do something else, I put my hand under a box and drew out the package of medicine.  No concentrating on an image was necessary at all.  I wasn't even concentrating on anything.  It was just a small prayer  "Lord I don't know where the rest of it is.  Will I have to contact the vet for more?"  And God led me directly to it as I went about my business..  God is so faithful.  When we rely on Him continually He builds our faith for major problems.  

[GandalfTheWise]

@Lou Zion, Ultimately healing and miracles come from God, not from us eliminating every shadow of doubt and feeling 100% confidence.  For example, Mark 9:14-29  (which I won't paste into this post for space).  A man asks Jesus to heal his son if it was possible.  From the reading of this passage, it does not seem likely that this father suddenly lost every single doubt in an instant.  Rather, it is having enough trust and confidence in the One who can do miracles to ask.   At one point, Paul has the churches take up a collection for the poor in Jerusalem.  The church in Jerusalem had disciples there who had likely seen Jesus feed the thousands.  Some of the original 12 apostles were still there.   Why did they need help meeting their needs in life?  Why wouldn't they be feeding the world through their faith like Jesus had done for the thousands?   Paul (who had enough faith to see many miracles in his ministry) had some type of ailment or affliction that God did not heal.  Timothy had some sort of stomach ailment that Paul addressed not through prayer and faith but rather practical eating advice.

I've been a Christian for over 40 years as well.  I spent some time around pentecostal circles and I've seen credible examples of people being healed.  I've had a few things in my life that I cannot explain in another other way.  I've also seen many Christians not healed.  At one point in my life, I chalked this up to unconfessed sin and lack of faith.  If only they (or we as a church) had enough real faith and holiness, then the miracles and healing would certainly happen.  I started to see over time that often our faith is not always something we stoke up to cause God to do things, but rather our response to be willing to let Him do things.  God is God and He chooses to do things in His own timing.  He sends sun and rain on both the just and the unjust.  He sends His miracles and healing to both those of strong faith and those of weaker faith.  In our church, we've seen credible examples of healing where something extremely out of the ordinary happen.  We've also had funerals.  Why would God use Paul to heal people and yet not heal Paul?  There are some things that are simply in His hands that He does by His counsel.

Growing up, I developed a number of phobias and a few compulsive behaviors.  Fortunately, nothing debilitating, but limiting at times.  In my 40s, I was at a service with a guest speaker.  He gave an altar call and I felt strongly impressed that I was supposed to go up.  I didn't know for what, but I knew God wanted me up there.  He prayed a short generic prayer over me and without a particular reference to anything, those phobias and behaviors vanished.  One of those things was related to food.  I had grown up as a picky eater (from what I've seen I am much more sensitive to many flavors than most people).  I had developed a near gag reflex whenever I ate some things with particular ingredients.  In an instant, that was gone.  I had always accepted that as a part of life for me.  I found that a world of new foods opened up to me after that.  There are still some flavors I do not like to eat (for example cilantro tastes like soap to me and certain common ingredients seem very acidic or bitter to me), but I no longer have that extreme reaction I used to.  Now, why did God just choose to do this at this point in my life?  He could have done it years earlier.  He could have brought this to my attention ahead of time as something to pray about.  This was certainly not in response to a particular amount of strong faith on my part.  I just had a strong feeling I was supposed to let someone pray for me and I let them and God did something unexpected.  In the grand scheme of life, what I like to eat does not seem all that important.  Why did God choose this to do something about?  I don't know.  Perhaps it was part of a general move toward a healthier lifestyle that I was starting about that time and being able to eat a wider range of food was good for me.  I do know that at times in my life where I start to feel doubts about life, I can look back at this moment and know that God did something miraculous I cannot explain in any other way.  This wasn't just one thing that changed that day, but a series of things that I simply cannot explain in any other way.

I think that the key in this is that our trust and confidence (which is what faith really is) be in God and what He is doing.  When our focus becomes on trying to measure and eradicate our doubts and lack of feeling complete confidence, we are now trusting in our own abilities to eliminate doubt rather than focusing on God.  When people came to Jesus with a serious need, their faith was that they thought He could do something that no one else could and it was being exhibited by their coming to Him and asking.  When people refused to accept Jesus, their lack of faith was exhibited in that they did not go to Him or ask anything of Him.  From one point of view, we see people coming to Jesus and being healed through their faith.  From another point of view, we have a blind man sitting and begging day after day and year after year (probably at times wondering why God had cursed him that way and refused to do something about it and having resigned himself to being blind until he died), and then suddenly, one day God (in the person of Jesus) showed up to do something.  Sometimes after waiting for years (and perhaps resigning ourselves to something), God shows up one day to do something in His timing and our faith is about responding to what He wants us to do at that moment.  I think that a part of faith is walking closely with Him and learning to follow His timing on things He wants to do in our lives and other people's lives.