One giant leap in his advancement.
If you’re stuck, then you lack power. The ability to reposition yourself is essential, a key part in adapting and overcoming.
And one of the best steps you can take is backwards.
Children respond to their emotions as if they’re real, accurate and important. It’s all-caps, always – they’re never upset but UPSET. Every pleasant thing is sublime beyond compare. Every bad experience is the greatest tragedy.
Who are adults but tall children?
We all have moments where emotions hit us hard. Some of them don’t make sense. How you respond defines who you are.
Recently, I felt pissed off at one of my mates and I couldn’t tell you why. He hadn’t done anything to earn that. So I took a step back from my anger and examined it, curious about where it was coming from.
Giving into the anger would have been folly if it was all on my end. I was tired, hungry and wrestling with some minor back pain. Or maybe I was being jealous or resentful of him.
But ignoring the anger would have been folly too. Maybe he was doing something, prodding some boundary I needed to reestablish.
This applies to much of life.
And the ability to step back and examine yourself is a vital tool in the fight against Evil. Most sinning is weakness in the moment – an ineffective response to a bad situation. Talk with people indulging in a vice right now, and you’ll find folks who are scared, frustrated, tired, lonely, miserable or bored.
The ability to step back and examine yourself is a powerful weapon.
Use it wisely.
Another powerful weapon?
My book, Why You Should Fight Evil.
Evil is everywhere, including in your heart. And it mostly looks mundane and harmless. It’s not. Your duty as a Christian and as a man is to learn how to root out Evil from your life.
Step back, see Evil and strike.
You’ll have a clearer image of your foe once you read this: