Spiritual Warfare and Feelings

  

 Everyone is familiar with the image of the pesky little demon who sits on our left shoulder and the ever vigilant angel who is forever on our right. This image is supposed to be symbolic of our constant battle between that which beckons us to choose the good and that which tempts us toward the bad. If only it were that simple.

 Sometimes, that little demon is not interested in influencing us toward the "bad" but instead inflicts on us a much more cunning move of making us feel a certain way. Not that all our less than honorable feelings are inspired by the minions of the father of lies but more often than not, it is those feelings that seem to come out of nowhere. One minute, we are peacefully going about our business, and the next moment feelings of irritation, fear, and/or anxiety come over us like a wave. In addition, the evil little minion is more than happy to suggest why we feel the way we do. Now, negative entities can't read our minds but they are much more intelligent than we are. After all, they are fallen angels. They are able to observe our actions and reactions and make highly educated guesses as to what we might be thinking. Moreover, they do have the capability of meddling with our emotions along with our imagination and memories. 

The evil minions often use our emotions, imagination and memories against us in the most subtle of ways and the most effective way, apparently, is they use these faculties to convince us that God does not care about us. And here is the clencher -- God doesn't care about us because He is indifferent, no -- the soul comes to the conclusion that God doesn't care about us because we are not worth caring about. We come to this false conclusion because that is the way we feel. We spend massive amounts of time trying to convince ourselves that God loves us and cares about us -- about YOU in particular.

These feelings, if not dealt with appropriately with fasting, prayer, the Sacraments and spiritual guidance cause despair, anxiety, depression and asking if life is even worth it. This truly is a time of testing and trial. For the devout soul, it's a time of walking through that valley of death and God is nowhere to be found. For the less devout there's not much of a struggle. They just give up and move on to anything that will make them feel better. But, of course, both you and I know it's a ruse.

So, it would be well to remember that we should never let ourselves be led around by our feelings. Granted, our Good Lord will, at times, allow us sweet spiritual consolations but we are counseled by saints and mystics that we are to love, with all our heart the God of our consolations and not the consolations of our God.

God Bless