Spiritual Warfare

So after long labor and many trials I have reached the earth-shattering conclusion that every second of my life is a choice between light and darkness - between good and evil. This I've known intellectually for years, but only recently has it sank into the core of my being. My theory is that intellectual understanding is easy, quick, and facile, but only skin deep - the tip of the iceberg. Getting the below-the-surface part to go along with the intellect is real work. Or maybe I'm just slow.

This choice is ongoing. Every day requires a new conversion - a reaffirmation of the choice to follow God. Every morning I should turn my heart to Him.

Notice how the above paragraph is phrased. Turning to God. Not specifically away from sin. This is something else that took me years to learn. When we turn to face sin and fight it directly we have already lost the battle. The darkness - Satan, our adversary - is smarter, stronger, and more experienced than we are. I cannot defeat him in direct combat.

However, as my parish priest used to say, when you look into the sun, your shadow is behind you. When we run to God He will take us under His wing. In that shelter we can rest secure from our Enemy.

How do we turn to God and rest in the shelter of His arms? The same way a child runs to his mother for comfort, or his father for help. The same way my dog runs to me when I come home. We fly to His arms with total confidence and total abandonment to Him. We hold nothing back.

More specifically, I have noticed inverse correlations in my patterns of turning to God, then running away from Him.

• The longer the time between confessions, the less I turn to God, and the more I run from Him. My resolution is to confess at least every two weeks, if not weekly.
  
• The less time spent reading spiritual books, the less I turn to God, and the more I run from Him. My resolution is to read spiritual books every day, if only for a few minutes before going to sleep.
  
• When I don't pray in the morning, I don't think about God during the day. For me the main problem here is Saturday and Sunday morning. During the week I attend daily Mass in the morning, and I pray before Mass. On Saturday I don't attend Mass, and on Sunday I attend in the evening. My resolution is to pray every single morning.
  

My evangelical friend James (CPZM) would take me to task for not including scripture reading in the above list. Clearly spiritual reading includes the scriptures. I think I will spend some time with detailed commentary on specific books, versus reading the entire Bible all the way through as I've done twice before. Fr. Barthelemy's book is a stirring interpretation of how God draws man to himself; reading this book made me realize how far off I was in my spirituality and brought on my current spiritual crisis. Next up on my list is Adrienne von Speyr's commentary on St. John's gospel.