Spiritual and emotional maladies can require complexly thought-out, faith-held solutions. At the general level we fight through, but on the specific – instance-related – level we are gentle over ourselves.
Knowing when and how to either fight or surrender is a unique wisdom that’s different for each and every person. This is why good-to-great levels of self-knowledge are a key to our overall success, and self-honesty over the longer haul gets us there.
The Very Best of Both Worlds
Being able to know when to press in and when and how to back off are crucial to success in the spiritual realm, for we do not battle with a ‘seen’ foe.
Many things, for instance our minds, are difficult to counter without the resources deeper at our welfare. Here we—like legal counsel assisting us—externally, by method, ‘act’ for ourselves. Self-discipline and courage from such a more external position is easier.
Doing this we can reason and rationalise with what we’re actually thinking and feeling, and we validate both. We can iterate through sharp episodes of fighting through and surrender, and these all in the balance of the overall fight of faith.
Theory Toward Actual Practice
Doing this is intuitively managing the self on a daily and momentary basis. If we’re in ‘it’ for the longer haul we won’t mind squaring-off certain battles; to ‘win’ everything is not our objective, but survival to the end is.
The practice of this still contends that surrendering occasionally—and finding rest—is vital in the overall scheme.
We need to be striving for consistency, but accepting that, spiritually-speaking, consistency is bound to waver. When times come when things are too much we need to be gentle with ourselves, saving ourselves for later conquests, in faith. This is because at the time we feel vulnerable and useless, and we’ve lost the foresight of seeing any hope for continuing the fight.
At these times, total rest is best; ‘rest’ being anything that reinvigorates our souls done from a restful perspective.
Back for the Fight
When we’re back on deck, ready to resume the fight, we have renewed tenacity, because we feel recharged and enabled. This is the benefit of true Sabbath.
Coming back for the fight like this is a miracle to us, for we now see how temporarily blind we actually we, perhaps only hours or a day beforehand.
This gives us confidence and hope for the next time we need to surrender—that rest will deliver us, and God by it.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
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