Our nature is not to go forward all the time. It has its to’s and fro’s. – Blaise Pascal
We prefer straight, unrelentingly, upward paths and the slightest dip is often enough to throw us into confusion.
We diet for eight days and fill up on the ninth and then berate ourselves as though the eight days don’t count, as though they never happened.
“Look at me. I’m a failure. How come? I was doing so well.”
And the answer comes back: “Because it’s in our nature to forever gain a little, and forever to lose a little. Life has a lot of two steps forward and one step back.”
The spiritual journey is no exception, because we make the journey as who we are … human beings … not as what we would like to be, escapees from a frail, inconstant humanity.
For eight days we set aside time to prayer. And on the ninth we set aside time for a mindless sitcom.
But the journey is all the steps, even the backward ones. It’s no in our nature to go forward all the time.
It’s certainly no what God expects. So why are our expectations higher than God’s?
- John Kirvan in “Raw Faith”
