I can only tell you what works for me. You may try it and have varying levels of success. All it takes is the commitment of self-discipline (recall this is one of the godly attributes of 2 Timothy 1:7) to embark on the journey. And if you see sufficient early progress, you may be encouraged to continue to grow in your experience of continual God consciousness.
Indeed, what I am encouraging you to do is what I did when I taught myself how to nap. It took a year or two to learn how to relax my eyes into unconsciousness, such is the muscle control required. Learning a continual God consciousness is similar in many ways, particularly regarding the journey of early commitment, tracking progress, and seeing it through.
It is essentially about being prepared to change practices, and in this regard, have God change the way you think.
Firstly, I must say that in practising a continual God consciousness there is never any more need to practice a structured devotional life. That must sound hideous. And certainly, any pastor who heard that could be abhorred. What I mean is practising a continual God consciousness becomes your devotional life. You are of a practical sense, praying continually, as Paul urged us to do in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. When you are practising a continual God consciousness, that mystery of having a ‘relationship’ with Jesus—the one and only true living God—is settled once and for all. Suddenly we understand what having a relationship with the Spirit Jesus is all about. And by the Holy Spirit you are led, to go left or right, to the persons to interact with, to the book and page and paragraph to read, and even to what to do in most situations. You could very well call continual God consciousness a prayer life and a devotional life wrapped into one. Continual God consciousness drives the prayer life and the devotional life.
But there is more. This continual God consciousness is not just about being a faithful follower of Jesus. It is but a fundamental start to all of life itself.
Secondly, and I’ve already mentioned this, what I’m suggesting can only be learned through practice, over the years, and honed over the decades. If you’re willing to give it a go, if you really want to taste and live the abundant life that Jesus promised in John 10:10b, you’ll make the initial and ongoing commitments.
The mechanics of this practice are simply about carrying a connection with God in our minds all the time. Wherever our minds go, our minds are conscious of God being there with us, about God speaking to us through his Spirit about what we are experiencing. Through all our senses we experience the world with God, aware of his presence, being fully accompanied through life with this God of our creation. We can certainly get to a point in our continual God consciousness where we see there is no other way to be.
Thirdly, you might be asking by now what has this got to do with anxiety?
For me, anxiety would sometimes dominate my thoughts, and there are anxieties I feel in my body. Knowing that the root of many maladies emanates from the mind, we can use our minds to soothe our minds and bodies. Certainly, also, anxiety stems from trauma and other causes that are insidious. These are specialist areas that this article cannot delve into because of its brevity.
Using the replacement principle from Philippians 4:8—“whatever is excellent… think about these things”—using the soundness of our minds, we begin to exercise control over our minds. I am not for one minute saying that this is the only thing you should do, but what I am saying is this can be the basis from which all other things you do can be founded.
When we use the replacement principle, we may commonly find, that as light shines into the darkness so that the darkness cannot cohabit, with our minds positively engaged with God there’s less room for thoughts that overwhelm us. This is not to say that all anxiety will be removed. There is such a thing as existential anxiety, which is common to the human experience of living. This is the anxiety that makes us aware that we are alive, thinking and feeling creatures. To be rid of this form of anxiety would also be to agree not to experience the heights of joy. No, we should not be threatened by our thoughts and feelings, even when they are sometimes difficult to cope with.
Managing anxiety through continual God consciousness really does help, because we are more or less able to check in with God on everything, and the more we do it, the more seamless it becomes.
Photo by Lauren York on Unsplash
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