From distraction to destruction

THE two words can look and sound almost the same, and the reality behind them are just as much. That’s why we need to be most careful. It’s very easy to slip from a passing distraction to a total wreck of a destruction in ourselves.

There is a good distraction and a bad one, a healthy distraction and a sick one that can lead us to our perdition. We have to be most discerning with the way we handle things nowadays, because they can either give us good openings and opportunities or lead us to take sweet poisons.

And the secret is always to be closely united with Christ with whom we can put ourselves properly guarded. With him we would know what really comes from God and what comes from something else.

Let’s always remember that evil cannot stand on its own. It will always need the cover of something good to inject us with its toxin. We need to be clever, as Christ himself told us, without losing our innocence. (cfr. Mt 10,16) We should not be naïve. That is why we have to be most discerning of the spirit behind each thing that we handle and each event that can take place in our life. There is a good spirit and a bad one.

When we are with Christ, we would always be prudent in the use of things in general. There is always an element of detachment and of keeping distance even as we immerse ourselves in the things of the world. This detachment is for us to see if we are doing things according to God’s will and not being swallowed by the dynamics of worldly forces that can be very engaging and irresistible.

For us to be prudent, it is indeed advisable that we pause from time to time to check on how we are taking things in general, on how things are developing and on how our intentions are. We know quite well that things can change in the process. What may be good at the beginning can start to stray somewhere along the way.

Indeed, we may start by looking for God in the things that we do, giving him glory and conforming ourselves to his will and ways. But along the way, we can start giving in to our own desires, our own will and ways. From loving God, we can easily slide to loving self. We are very notorious in this tendency.

That’s why we really need to pause and check ourselves often. We have to see to it that we manage to keep our proper spiritual and supernatural bearing. In other words, we have to realize that whatever we do, whatever the situation is, we somehow would still be in contact with God. Somehow everything should be a form of prayer.

For this to take place, we certainly need a kind of plan or program to keep our spiritual life alive and vibrant even as we go through the drudgery of the routine things or the excitement of new and challenging things.

But we need to discipline ourselves to follow that plan, knowing that no matter how good that plan is, if we fail to deny ourselves and carry the cross, as Christ himself told us, (cfr. Mt 16,24) we cannot keep our proper spiritual and supernatural bearing, and thus become prone to a distraction that can lead us to our destruction!