There is a prayer that I learned well over a year ago, one that I should have said every day since, but that I have not started saying until as of recent. It is the “Set Aside Prayer,” focusing on changing our daily walk.
This prayer is about having an open mind, setting aside everything we think we know about God because anyone who is a follower of Christ will learn that what we know about God is only but a sliver of who He is. We will never understand His vastness, no matter how well versed and knowledgable we become, as Job discovers in his Journey while Satan tries to turn him.
Furthermore, we have to set aside what we think we know about ourselves as we don’t know ourselves as well as we think.
We don’t realize how much control our mind has over our actions, not God, but our subconscious part of our minds, controlling what we do and where we go. Our subconscious mind can manipulate what we do and say, thinking we are doing what we are supposed to do but doing and saying things that are unhealthy for us.
Our subconscious mind causes us to justify behavior in love instead of saying and doing things to be just done with love as Jesus does. The subconscious mind causes us to act out of anger rather than to suffer out of pain.
When we set aside what we think we know about others, we see them as they are, not as we want them. It keeps us from manipulating them to become something that they aren’t, no matter how much we want them to do what is right for them, allowing ourselves to do what is right. It keeps us from doing for them what we would not do for ourselves.
Setting aside what we think we know about recovery allows us to experience recovery. Most think recovery is about quitting drinking, doing drugs, watching porn, being abusive, co-dependency, or any other addiction.
Recovery is about changing our lives and addressing the serious underlying issues that continue to haunt most who quit the addiction, only to rely on another addiction, returning to the addiction, or worse, to live with the underlying haunts and never address them.
When we set aside everything we think we know, we begin to see the truth and change paths. No longer manipulating or manipulated, freeing us to suffer while focusing on God’s loving and just ways leading us to a better life, the one God wants for us.
Amen(truly, certainly, may it be so)
“God, Please enable me to set aside everything I think I know about you, myself, others, recovery, the twelve steps and my disease. For an open mind and a new experience. Please help me to see the truth.
Love God, love people