Spiritual Creation

We are in the process right now of building a guest house. (And when I say we, I really mean my husband and two oldest boys. They are doing all the work themselves.)

This guesthouse has been a dream of mine for a long time.  We spent A LOT of time thinking and re-thinking and thinking again about exactly what we wanted. The official plans now contain all of the little details that will be included in the house.   The hope is that all of the time spent in the planning stage will pay off, and we will be happy with the finished project.

We know that Heavenly Father used a similar process when He created the earth. He created all things spiritually before He created them physically. (Moses 3:5) Genesis 2:4-6 even tells us that He made every plant before it was in the earth.  That was a pretty detailed plan!

What if we apply this same principle to the "creation" of our thoughts and feelings?  Bear with me as I get a little abstract here.  What if, instead of just reacting to the things going on around us, and having to deal with whatever feeling comes up, what if we could plan ahead for likely scenarios, and decide what we want to think, and how we want to feel in those situations?

Here is what that might look like:

You decide to try a new, healthy recipe for dinner.  You know from past experience that not everyone in the family is going to appreciate it.  In fact, some of the people will probably hate it, and throw fits and refuse to eat.  You have a couple of options when the inevitable happens:  You could just get mad and lecture everyone about how rude they're being.  You could try to control your irritation with how ungrateful and unreasonable they are, and force a happy face.  This might work for a while, but you may eventually snap.  Even if you don't snap on the outside, you will likely still be throwing a tantrum in your head.

OR... you can decided ahead of time how you want to feel in that situation and choose a thought that creates that emotion.  You could "spiritually create" the experience you want to have.

You could decide that, instead of irritated,  you want to feel amused by their behavior.  You imagine what will happen at dinner tonight, and when you see (in your mind) the kids whining about how gross dinner is, you think to yourself "Ha! If they only knew how predictable they are! I totally called it!" Amusement.

You could choose a thought like "We are so blessed that my kids have never known what real hunger is.  Their picky-ness is evidence of abundance in our lives."  If you think that thought, you might actually feel gratitude even in the midst of all the complaining.

If you have planned ahead, those thoughts and feelings will be so much easier to access when the actual situation arises.

By planning ahead how we will think and feel in any given situation, we get to be the ones in control of our experience.  We can't always control the people around us- even the really little ones!  But we always get to choose our own thoughts and feelings.  And those two things are ultimately what create our experience in life.

Living life in "default" mode (just reacting to whatever thoughts and feelings come up) is an option.  It's what most people do.  But if we learn the skill of SPIRITUAL CREATION, of intentionally choosing ahead of time what we will think and feel, then life is full of wonderful possibilities!  It is the ultimate use of our agency!


Christi