Tag: battle

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60 Second Wisdom – How to Slay the Dragon

“The hardest battle to win is one you don’t even realize you are fighting, and the hardest enemy to defeat is the one you don’t even know exists. Every day you are in a battle with resistance.

Make no mistake, resistance is your enemy. It will not quietly go away and leave you alone. You have to slay it like a dragon, and you have to slay it anew each day.

Here are 4 ways to slay resistance every day:

1. Expect resistance. You should be surprised. It’s going to be there breathing fire every day.

2. Know what you want more than the mindless comfort of procrastination.

3. Focus on one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is a mega-resistance trap.

4. Just do it.

And remember, don’t just be yourself, become the best version of yourself!”

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Ascension Presents – Prayer Ain’t Easy

Growing up Fr. Mike thought prayer should be like soaking in a hot tub. He didn’t understand why it was so hard when he tried it.

It took him a while to learn that, as the Catechism says, prayer is a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. Prayer always presupposes effort. There’s always some kind of engagement when we properly pray to God. It’s not just about soaking in God’s grace. The required effort in prayer is difficult more often than it is not. Prayer is a battle against ourselves and “the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer” (CCC 2725).

Over time, Fr. Mike discovered that prayer needs to be more than a momentary time where we seek solace and closeness with God. We need to constantly acknowledge our relationship with God throughout the day, just as a husband and wife are constantly thinking of each other. Then when we do set aside time to simply be with God, it happens more naturally.

If you want to improve your prayer life, make the intentional and faithful decision to live the same way outside of prayer as you do within prayer.

Read “The Battle of Prayer” section in the Catechism.