Struggling with your faults?

Do you struggle with your faults and weaknesses?  Like St. Paul (Romans 7:15), are you stymied that you keep doing exactly what you do not want to do?

Are you miserable in your job?  Do you walk around frustrated because life isn't quite what you expected?

Maybe this will help.

I've been following our Bishop's recommendation and setting aside time for an online retreat called Taking Back the Crown by St. Mary's Catholic Center.  One of the days focuses on the spiritual movements of consolation and desolation.

Briefly, consolation is a movement of the heart that leads you closer to God, while desolation leads you away, into anger, agitation and so forth.  One of the first things we should do when we are struggling is to acknowledge what we are experiencing and feeling, and express it to God, asking for a particular grace according to our desire.

Let me give you an example.

Let's say you are a grumbler.  Acknowledge it and express your desire to God to help you stop complaining.  Ask for it every day in prayer.  Since God will respond to your sincere request, you will begin to see yourself move away from grumbling as he changes your heart.  It adds a new perspective to the "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7)  because it makes us consider the what we are asking for (internal peace vs a new car).

But I digress.

The weakness or fault that you want to get rid of can be affected in one of two ways.  Satan can use your weaknesses to give you a false consolation that leads you to desolation, or God can use your weakness to lead you out of desolation, thus giving consolation.

Let me explain.

Satan may give you an immediate consolation in gossiping.  Maybe it makes you feel good to talk about other people because you feel better about yourself.  But, as always happens, once the initial lift you feel vanishes, you feel terrible and return to desolation.  This impacts the way you treat others throughout the rest of your day.

We can remain in this state of desolation for awhile, as we keep leaning into our faults because they provide some sort of joy for us. This can lead us to be generally miserable without really knowing why.

God, on the other hand, will handle your weakness differently, which can change everything.

God knows you have a tendency to gossip.  You do, too.  Getting ahead of the game, before you fall deeper into your weakness, ask God for the grace of recognizing it and express your sincere desire to work against it.

This consolation, then, this moving away from your weakness, in effect, brings consolation out of your weakness and will help move you out of desolation, bringing more internal peace and joy, as your tendency to gossip diminishes.

Same weakness.  Different outcome.

This is a rather simplified example related to a heavy subject, but it really does make a difference, whatever your particular fault is, if you ask for the grace to recognize it and express our desire in regards to it.  It is possible to make this spiritual shift in your life through prayer.

So many of us run around wondering why we can't hear God, or why he seems to be absent from our troubles, feeling like a solution eludes us.  But, before we go down that road, we need to consider the importance of prayerful silence that may be required--routinely--for a breakthrough.

The consolation you will be given when you turn to God in this way will bring a transformation beyond what you can every imagine.  Give God a try!

Janet Cassidy
janetcassidy.com

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