Why the conflict?

In my previous post I talked about becoming what we receive.  In the middle of the post, I posed the question:  Why the conflict? But I didn’t answer it.  Why can I see myself transforming to an extent and yet still remaining attached to a “movement” of society?  The only answer I could come up with is it’s part of my journey.  I’m on a road that leads up a very high mountain – one that leads to God.  The harder I work to move further up that mountain toward holiness, the harder the “opponent” will work to distract me from my goal.  The good news is that I WILL NOT be discouraged!  Distracted at times? Yes, but not discouraged.  I will not beat myself up for the distractions either, I will just be aware of them and move on – onward and UPWARD! Amen!  I will continue on my journey confident in the fact that the further up the mountain I get, eventually I will reach a point where the opponent cannot reach – eventually he will be discouraged!

I heard a sermon by Joel Osteen one day where he made a great analogy for our journey to God, to holiness. He was explaining the journey of mountain climbers and how they had to constantly be on the look out for deadly snakes during their hike.  He talked about how the mountain climbers, if they climbed high enough, would eventually reach an altitude where they no longer had to worry about snakes because the air was so thin a snake could not survive.  So it is with us, we are all climbing that mountain – sometimes it seems like a cake walk and other times it seems like we keep bumping our heads against the wall.  Obviously we will never “arrive” in this life.  As Joan Chittister says in her book, Called to Question, life is an accumulation of becoming, all of them important, none of them complete. The important thing is to learn from our experiences and continue to work at growing in holiness.  Do not be discouraged – each new day is filled with new struggles and new possibilities.  The further along we come on our journey, the more likely it is our “opponent” will realize he can’t get to us and he’ll leave us alone!  Let’s distract and discourage him by moving further up the mountain, by stretching our souls, by taking on a new spiritual practice we never considered before.  Have you become comfortable?  Have you become complacent?  There’s more to do.

Scripture says: “God is love and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him……….. there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear………… and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love”  When we work at cultivating love in our hearts, life becomes less of a struggle.  Have you noticed that?  So our goal for this journey is not to “arrive” at any particular place but to be perfect in love so that there will be no room for our opponent!  God bless you!