The War of the Soul
I have often found myself agitated—frustrated with outcomes, fearful of what God might be asking of me, or lost in despair. For a long time, I would ask God why I seemed to be filled with more hurt or struggle than peace as I journey through this life?
The fruit of my despair has been turning to movies, food or drink, and endless noise to numb the pain—escapes that would eventually lead to sin against God, my neighbor, or myself. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!
By the grace of God, He always invites us back into His family and Church through prayer, attending Mass, and going to confession. But for me, this began to feel like a vicious cycle. I felt that I needed more grace, more Mass, more prayer, and more confessions to make sure I could continue the battle. Slowly, I turned God into a kind of vending machine—what I put into my spiritual life determined what I got out of it. It became almost transactional.
My sister gave me a book about a year ago that has given me a new set of lenses on winning the war within called Searching for and Maintaining Peace, by Jacques Philippe, and he writes:
“Quite often, in the daily unfolding of our Christian life, it happens that we fight the wrong battle… because we orient our efforts in the wrong direction. We fight on a terrain where the devil subtly drags us and can vanquish us, instead of fighting on the real battlefield, where, on the contrary, by the grace of God, we are always certain of victory.”
I have come to realize that I had been battling on the wrong battlefield. The battle I was fighting was purification through sheer grit and force. But the battle we are called to fight is for peace of mind, heart, and soul. Philippe explains,
“To permit the grace of God to act in us and to produce its fruit (with the cooperation, of course, of our will, our intelligence, and our capabilities), it is of the greatest importance that we strive to acquire and maintain an interior peace—the peace of our hearts.”
He then echoes Dom Lorenzo Scupoli, who writes that “the devil does his utmost to banish peace from one’s heart, because he knows that God abides in peace, and it is in peace that He accomplishes great things.”
God lives in peace, and it is from peace that He does great things in us. Even when we lose a battle, the call is to search for and maintain our peace. Peace is where God wins the war of the soul. Our aim is to win the war of our souls—to get to heaven and to help others get there, too.
Lord, help us remain in peace, so that You may accomplish Your work within us.