If it is the Lord really working through our thoughts, he will persist despite our attempts to dismiss them. If, as is much more likely, it is our own mind seeking to insert themselves into the contemplative work, these insights will usually fade away once we seriously seek to dismiss them. Thus I have found it quite safe, and pleasing to the Lord, to say to the Him: Lord if these thoughts and images are really from you, you insist on them. But since it is more likely that I am the source of them and they are interfering with Your work in me, I will continue quietly to push them aside.  –“When the Well Runs Dry: Prayer Beyond the Beginnings” Father Thomas H. Green