Question about thoughts

[star456]

I was reading another thread about how to control your thoughts if your having unclean or unworthy ones and was wondering, if you have bad thoughts obviously you are supposed to repent but is praying to God and asking for forgivness enough or do you have to confess to the bishop in order truly repent of the immoral thoughts?

[ryanh]

Praying and asking forgiveness is not enough. Neither is talking to your Bishop.

True repentance is more than just praying or confessing. Repenting includes change of behavior and nature. To put off the natural man through yielding to the enticings of the Holy Ghost, and becoming a new person. To have a change of heart. Obviously, this process takes time, and the help of God, but it's not a checklist of activities as it is often simplified to be. Those checklists represent steps that someone truly seeking to change will follow. But, the purpose of repentance is to become a different person, not just complete some steps.

So, "having" unclean thoughts and what steps to take is not really a question that is easy to answer without more information. We all have/had thoughts come to us at times. It's what we do with them that signifies what repentance steps we need to take, and how far we are from the ideal of where we want to be. Are you talking about seriously entertaining and fantasizing on immoral thoughts? Severe or violent immoral thoughts? Perhaps it would be appropriate to confer with you Bishop and seek his help if that is the case.

I dare say though, that if every member of a ward met with the Bishop ever time they had a bad thought cross their mind, the poor guy would never leave his office!

[Guest]

There's having a bad thought and there's entertaining a bad thought...

When a bad thought enters your mind sing "I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints... " really loud. Yep. Drives that thought away all the time. No fail.

[RalphTheMouth]

Two things have worked for me:

1) We are counseled to be Christ like. So I recall the story in Luke 4:5-8 --

5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.

7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

So like Jesus we are tempted. So I follow the example of Christ and say/think, "GET THEE BEHIND ME SATAN" and move on.

2) I block it out or as some might call it meditate. Your head can only think of so many things at once. So overload it. Begin by breathing normally, calmly, deeply. Think of the breath in and out, in and out. Then listen to your heart beat, thump, thump, thump. Then count your heartbeats, one, two, three, and on. Focus and concentrate on it. You will not be able to think about whatever else was going on in your head. One thing you might want to do either before or after (which ever works best) is write down a list of things you need to be working on immediately after you meditate so you have something to focus on once you finish meditating or overloading your brain.

Good luck!