Seeking God’s Wisdom via Subconsciousness

“If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.”

— James 1:5 (NRSV)

We worry a lot, us human beings. We know—or at least Christians should—that we have prayer with which to take our anxieties to God; in order that we would be, in some way, delivered of them.

But we may pray and still worry, at least subconsciously—beneath the layers of conscious thinking we are aware of. We are so close to the answer, but to continue to worry is a sign we still haven’t let go.

There are conscious things—deliberate things—we can do to let go at a subconscious level; to assist the experience of true peace of giving the matter to God. But to finally realise this is, with God’s help, a miracle we couldn’t engineer despite our most committed efforts.

But still we must strive and search—but not too hard.

We need a balance between passion and the wisdom of surrender, for it is in surrender we will finally find God working this way:

We think on a problem or decision that must be made, and then we actually invite the Spirit to speak.

Then we leave it completely, unless we are required to act in the meantime. Having left the issue with God, many times, at the least expected moment, God provides an answer, as the Holy Spirit works in and through our subconscious to bring the way forward to the awareness of our conscious realisation.

Suddenly, this thought for a solution or way forward emerges from nowhere (it seems) and we check its veracity to see if it will work.

Having confirmed ‘this’ thought was from God—the answer of his Spirit—we go on in obedience joyfully knowing God has spoken.

And we remain casually watchful for how this matter plays out.

Then we see the evidence of God’s wisdom operating through us in these ways.

The Role of the Subconscious With the Spirit of God

There is far more to our thinking and mental capacities than we know consciously. How can we possibly plumb the depths of the subconscious, or unconscious mind? It is literally like the iceberg; much more of our consciousness lies beneath the waterline.

The point is this is one way how the Spirit works. God wants us to be sure that the idea has come from him and not from us. The Spirit works miraculously, and we could call some things that emerge from our unconscious minds “the thoughts of God”—though we need to be discerning.

Our role is to trust what comes up from the subconscious and be obedient in putting into practice if it seems right to us.

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We ask God to help through prayer and then we take the matter off him. But God’s Spirit works better when we leave the matter. Then God works through our subconscious layers of thinking to provide an answer; an answer we couldn’t have worked out for ourselves. Then all we need do is obey.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.