Faith Venture

Have you ever experienced a spiritual high? Perhaps around the campfire at a summer camp? Or perhaps during an Emmaus Walk? Perhaps after an intense period of prayer. Contemplatives might meditate for years before experiencing an intense revelation of God. If you’ve ever had this experience, you think it will never end. You’ll live your life on the mountaintop of emotional and spiritual ecstasy. You have seen the revelation of God and now you know everything.

Then things change. You are besieged by demons that you never knew existed before. That spiritual high has been replace by doubts, you are tempted to do things you’d have never  before thought of doing. Trust me. It happens. If you are in that latter period of life, don’t despair. You are not unique, and if you remember your source of love and understanding, then you’ll recover and grow.

Mark briefly describes Jesus’ baptism by John then says immediately Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted. He doesn’t go into any detail of the experiences that Jesus had. Only says that he was tempted by Satan and the angels waited on him. We get a glimpse of some of the details of the temptations from other gospels–and of how Jesus was able to quote from spiritual texts to answer the temptations.

We learn from this that we should expect temptations, doubts, spiritual and emotional turmoil after agreeing to living a life with God. We learn that by consciously recognizing the temptation for what it is and answering by studying what the Bible and saints who have overcome this tell us about how to go beyond the problems to a renewed life with God. “Get behind me, Satan,” as the comedian Flip Wilson used to say in one of his characters.

Jesus is the pioneer and example of our faith. If he had temptations, you can be we will. But we know that they are but a momentary obstacle on our road to life. Let the angels minister to you (and other people). Continue your life with God.

This entry was posted on March 22, 2010 at 2:24 pm and is filed under Christianity, Living, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.