Life on earth is a constant struggle to find our equilibrium.
On our way to that balance, God sends us favors (as indications). Most are small. They add up. There are also the little admonishments. Some are not so little. Mostly we are punished by the lack of His Presence. When we abuse anything God has given to us, we lose our equilibrium and we become stuck in a life that is a hum-drum litany of the non-miraculous.
This is why we find so many escaping to TV: there is no electricity in their own lives. When we need anything that is artificial, we are looking for fulfillment in the wrong places. Think of all the time spent in front of a computer or the television that could have been spent in prayer. If just a quarter of that time had been devoted to communicating with God, amazing things would occur. When we pray, the Holy Spirit naturally begins to bring us into balance and our lives become structured in a way that makes them receptive to miracles. The act of being positive initiates this process while the negative turns miracles away. It expects something bad, and often draws it (unless it is necessary warning, as Jesus warned in Matthew 24). Nothing could be more counter-productive. To be negative is to lack constructive features. Worse yet, negativity is usually a lie. God is the God of light and has good things – “painful things at times, yes, trying things, but in the end good things — waiting for us, when we don’t turn negative and (through pride) resist them. What a tragedy it is to see someone respond to a difficult situation with negative feelings that only make the problem worse and negate the grace that would otherwise be attached to the suffering!
Thus says the LORD: “If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; If you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; Then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday; Then the LORD will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails” (Isaiah 58:9-14).
Go with the flow. Let life open up to you. To repeat: don’t force things. The Good God also wants you to transcend every negative thought. Man the bridge. Let things — aggravations, temptations to anger, anxieties — pass like water beneath you. Let dark things pass. Make sure they remain (passing away) beneath you.
We should always wait on the Lord, and we should always follow His timetable.
Frustrated? In want of something that just isn’t happening? Can’t figure out why prayers aren’t answered? There’s only one solution: Let go of whatever it is you are yearning for and send it into God’s Hands. Trust beyond surrender. Put your mind on other matters. Anxiety inhibits grace and can be caused by the spirit of fear. This fear can come in many ways. It can be the product of repeated action on our part, or it can be a familial trait. We inherit spiritual baggage just as we inherit anything else, and it’s a mixture of good and bad. There are spirits of gluttony, lust, sloth, infirmity, despair, greed, rebellion, impurity, and addiction. We see how divorce runs in certain families. Usually, it’s a combination of factors. Spirits magnify our weaknesses. If we are prone to nervousness, a spirit of anxiety or even paranoia may develop within us, inhibiting happiness. A disposition toward procrastination may turn into a spirit of sloth; a dabbling with the occult, or a yearning for control, can turn into the spirit of dominance (or even witchcraft). This all bears repeating.
As it says in Ephesians (6:16), faith should be held up as a shield against the fiery darts of the evil one, which are then extinguished.
[original post]
