I realized i haven’t written much lately due to the plethora of activities that have been taking place these past few weeks. And as always what happens when you get to carried away with one activity after another? You start losing your focus and your prayer life takes a beating.
In the midst of trying to keep up with my commitments and activities, I have neglected the most fundamental aspect in my life – prayer. Its all too easy to neglect prayer when things start piling up. The pathology of the decline in one’s prayer life starts in 4 stages
At first you start working on things on your own because you know you can reach it and you just need time. The problem starts when you begin withdrawing your prayer time to supplement the other activities. And at first it seems alright – you can manage.
Then you begin taking on more things, more stuff and it starts to pile up all the more. Then you begin to feel the heat – the tiredness creeps in and the temptations start creeping in. To cope with demands of the commitments you make the biggest flaw – you start giving in to your temptations. You begin to compromise little by little.
At stage 3, thanks to the flaw you made at stage 2, you begin to drown yourself more and more. You find it hard to concentrate, you give in to more temptations and you end up feeling more frustrated. Your frustration builds up to irritability. The frustration is due to your inability to solve issues and address some of the commitments and because you are unable to meet the commitments (due to other commitments you agreed upon) you end up feeling angry and upset. All these negative emotions eventually accumulates and it makes you feel more hapless.
By the time you reach stage 4, you hit a point where you realize something needs to be done. This where some people choose to go up or to sink further into the abyss. This is the Prodigal Son Moment where you realize that you’ve been lacking the grace and the love from the one that is Love. Returning to the Source is very easy but often can be extremely disillusioning and even discouraging.
To return to the source, true repentance is a pre-requisitie, and meeting the prerequisite can pose serious challenges in itself. Those who are strong in the faith can make that leap faster; those who have spent too long in stage 3 may find it harder to make that leap as all the negative energy and pent up sin has clouded the heart of the soul. The evil one discourages and continues to mock the Source arguing whether it would be worth the effort to turn back to Him? Satan is one cunning fellow as I noted before.
Herein lies the challenge. John Bunyan’s pilgrim’s progress aptly covers this as Christian has to shoulder the weight of the burden up to the mountain. Are we up for the challenge? I think that’s where the real motivation and heart begins. We know the Source, some of us even know the way, but are we up for the challenge to return back to the Lord?
