Five Essential Weapons for Defeating Darkness

Early mornings are ripe with potential. A whole new day and new beginning lie before me. These unfolding hours and minutes contain mystical opportunities to undergo a spiritual transformation through big and tiny victories over my impulses and ego.

Truth be told, my default mode is sloth, times worry, plus glass half-empty, divided by overwhelm and decision fatigue. Just waking up and winging it pretty much guarantees I’ll slip right back into old familiar patterns that do not serve me.

For relief from chronic stress and aimlessness, I must arm myself each and every day with these five essential weapons for defeating darkness:

Awareness

From the moment I open my eyes each morning, I am engaged in a spiritual battle. It is a battle for calm, love, hope, joy, and growth against devilishly wily attacks that aim to keep me despondent, distracted, and spiritually barren. Awareness that such a battle is taking place shakes me awake and restores an eternal perspective on all I will experience and encounter in the day ahead.

Vigilance

With awareness comes alertness. Vigilance is inner stillness that remains attentive to the state of my heart. Vigilance responds swiftly to early warning signs of pride and turmoil with prayer and proactiveness: taking thoughts captive, weighing words, avoiding agitating content, and turning to Christ for help, comfort, and discernment before any task or interaction.  Vigilance protects my bubble of calm from all that threatens to pierce and invade it.

Obedience

Remaining inwardly vigilant helps me listen for the Holy Spirit. The work of salvation is wrought through obedience in the present moment to His still, small voice:

Reach out to your neighbor

Stay on task

Guard your tongue

Pray

Do not engage that thought

The more responsive I am to His guidance, the more I hear it and trust it to liberate me from the spiritual infirmities (pride, despair, envy, greed, gluttony, sloth…) keeping me anxious, stuck, and miserable.

Patience

By trying desperately to control what is beyond my control, I exhaust myself and become frantic, often reacting rashly and becoming paralyzed by fear. Patience releases the outcome to Christ and makes peace with what is unresolved. It allows room for God to act and for me to remain inwardly stable and hopeful in the face of uncertainty. Practicing patience builds muscles of restraint, increases my faith, and helps me continue growing and bearing fruit in the midst of my afflictions.

Gratitude

Through the lens of gratitude, everything takes on salvific significance and points back to the love and mercy of Christ.  Gratitude opens my eyes to God’s care and presence everywhere: in the miracles of nature, in the kindness of others, in the breath I breathe, in strength and wisdom born of struggle, in the joy of creativity, in the healing that comes from repentance...

When I am floundering in a downward spiral of negative thinking, gratitude is the rope I climb to get back on solid ground.

This day at hand is so very sacred, and when I approach it as such, I find meaning in the mundane, Christ in my trials, and profound beauty in unexpected places. God, help me persevere in pursuing light and doing good.