When dark clouds of trouble hang o’er us

Disclaimer/Trigger Warning: This post was conceived in a mind that also processes nuts and soy. Contains religion.

Make of it what you will, but it seems every time I try to “step up my game” spiritually my life takes a downward turn. Irritants crop up like weeds. People begin testing my patience.

I’ve mentioned before that I believe in God. And though I don’t like to dwell on it too much, that means I believe in the Devil, too. Not the horns, hooves, and tail devil, but one that looks just like you or I, and hates us all with an enmity that would make Boehner and Pelosi look like amatures.

So it’s to be expected that trying to improve myself and align myself more closely to God would draw some pushback from the opposition. The trouble it it’s not always easy to recognize that for what it is: pushback. It often looks a lot like “having a bad day.”

It’s often not the big things that bring us down, but the little things. Big things tend to rally our defenses and push us above the “prayer threshold” to where we call in the cavalry, so to speak. Little things…well, they’re little things. We should be able to just shake them off or ignore them. But we don’t devote our full attention to them, because they’re just little things.

It’s like wrestling with my nephews and neice when they were little. They were just little things, too. I didn’t want to bring my full physical advantage to bear, obviously. I could really hurt them. Nor did I want to make them mad by being too good at defending. Like Fezzik with Westley, I wanted them to feel they were doing well. I’d let them start working on me, but I’d peel them off one by one so that they couldn’t overwhelm me.

But sometimes, if they were a little more tenacious at hanging on, or if I was lax in removing them before they all three found good holds, they could take me down (and sit on my head until morning).

It’s much the same with the little things of life. They wear you down, they catch you off guard, and they gang up on you to drag you away from bettering yourself. They distract you, wear down your resolve, and make it easier to just not keep trying. And it works amazingly well. Continually.

Take this week: Back to back nightly traffic jams coming home from work after long, tedious days. Relentless heat. A little cat that has far too much energy and far too little discipline. A to-do list that never seems to get any shorter. Miscommunications with friends or family. Stress from others around me. None of those by themselves are much to worry about. But when they start to gang up on you it’s easy to forget the things you were trying to do better. They sap your strength and demand the time you had planned for other things.

So what are we to do? Well, to quote Steve Winwood, “Roll with it, Baby!” Either make those little anklebiter problems important enough to deal with or refuse to let them become more important than they deserve, but stand your ground and keep going as best you can on those things you were hoping to improve. Never give up. Never surrender.

Yeah, easier said than done. I tend to cave far too easily. I pray for patience, and then complain about getting opportunities to learn patience. I let other things take precedence.

But the thing is, whenever I finally take some of those things seriously enough to really, truly plead for divine help, and then back it up with concerted effort on my part, I’m finally able to make molehills out of those mountains. I’ve been able to overcome habits that had kicked my butt for years. Help is available, and it does work. But it does require work. Serious work.

No change worth making is ever easy. But just as there is a devil, there is a God; a loving, merciful God that can’t ignore your failings, but will help you overcome them if you really want to. And trust me on this, “knowing you should” is not the same as “really wanting to.”

Knowing you should is not enough to keep you pushing forward through all the anklebiter annoyances and distractions. Sometimes those little problems can even provide a welcome excuse to stop trying. But inevitably our internal peace gets pushed out along with our noble aspirations. Just remember there is hope smiling brightly before us, and we know that deliverance is nigh–if we keep pushing forward.