Spiritual Amnesia

At times we can misunderstand what spiritual warfare entails; especially if we glean that it may cost us in popularity and in one's longing to be liked.

It is at these times that many create comfort zones of appeasing the enemy or that due to fear many instead go with the flow rather than be seen to be different. And it is this capacity of not caring what happens to our neighbour so long as we are kept out of the fray that is the undoing of many Christians. For what harms our brother and sisters in Christ should affect us all and lend strength to fight the good fight.

Many will lose their way if their own 'neediness' to be liked and loved by people overcomes their knowledge that they are loved by God. There is also confusion in thinking that man's love is God's Love, no it is not! We are not here to win hearts and minds as if we were politicians who need to say what people want to hear even if it be a lie.

As Christians we are entrusted to speak the Truth, that is God's Truth and not our version of what we think is true.

Many of the Saints who went before us loved God's Truth so much they were willing to lay down their lives for it. And to this day in different parts of the world many more Christians die daily unknown and unloved by the populace but greatly loved by God.

Yet we who are comparatively safe fail to live and share this Truth and instead comply with the worldly lest they be perceived as 'mean' or politically incorrect. So they stay in the comfort zone they have erected around their hearts and minds so they can appease those who choose to do wrong with little affect on their own conscience.

When Mother Theresa met Presidents, Prime Ministers and other notables and upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize this great Saint did not appease the current trend of Pro-Choice where abortion is seen as a woman’s right to choose. Mother Theresa instead spoke the Truth, that the murder of innocent unborn babies is an evil, and that the Leaders of various nations and also individual people needed to understand that murder is not acceptable to God and is a Sin that cries out to Heaven. Mother Theresa understood she was not born to 'go along with the flow' but to indict the evil done and stand on Truth alone!

Thoughts of political correctness did not inhibit her nor did she have this 'neediness' to be loved by one and all, Mother Theresa knew she had the love of God and that God suffices. This great woman of the Church also knew that she was obligated to speak God's Truth as it is and not diminish it for her own self promotion.

Yet so many of us when it comes to unacceptable behaviour choose to remain silent, not because we respect another’s opinion but because many live in fear of others, rather than rely on God's Love they instead rely on the fickleness of human love.

This is spiritual amnesia, and leads to a soul becoming lukewarm in that we were created to fight the good fight and not surrender when the cost grows to high. And for many that cost is not their lives, it is their popularity which means more to them than to speak God’s Truth revealed in His Word and the Traditions of our Church.

The one thing that God will not accept is the mediocre love of the lukewarm for as The Word warns us, "I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth."

This should remind us all that we were not placed here in this time and in this place in order to create a 'comfort zone' so that we can live lives of spiritual amnesia.

For to truly love our fellow man we owe them the Truth, to speak anything other than the Truth is to dishonour them and bring discredit to yourself as self love is the usual motivation in accepting sin as a right!

Do we live in the Light or exist in the shadows for it is not sin that kills the soul, for through the Sacraments sin is forgiven, what kills the soul is...apathy!

Peace of Christ to ALL

Copyright © 2005 Marie Smith. All rights reserved.