Obstacles to Deepening Our Love Affair With God

The world wants you to believe that we should be ruled by ourselves and our feelings. If it feels good, do it. Satan wants us to selfishly focus on ourselves and push God away in all circumstances. It is important to know when we want to take the next step to deepen our love affair with God. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to shine a light on our feet as we walk down this path so we don’t trip before we even get started.

Stick With Your Decision

Have you ever attended a conference, listened to a speaker, or read something that ignited a fire in you to deepen your relationship with God? Perhaps you decided that you will get up 30 minutes earlier to spend time with God each morning in mental prayer. You are excited to see where God will take you on this new adventure together. This is all good stuff but be aware that Satan and his minions will do whatever they can to prevent this from happening. There are three things that come between us and God – the world, the flesh, and Satan.

For example, the day after you decide to pray, the alarm goes off and you immediately begin the list of excuses, “It’s too cold, I didn’t sleep well last night, I will pray later, I will hit snooze and do 15 minutes instead, etc.” Most likely, Satan is helping put up obstacles to stop you from your decision to get up early. Therefore, it is critical for you to stick with your decision to show Satan your commitment to loving God.

You need a game plan to get ahead of evil. What you should do instead is immediately get out of bed. Do not let any excuse have a chance to be heard. Pull the covers off, swing your legs out and put those feet on the floor. This is only the first step; now you must continue and spend that time with God in prayer.

But I Don’t Want to Pray

Not praying is a weakness of the will. Spiritual sloth is an attachment to pleasure with an unwillingness to engage in what is arduous (St. Thomas Aquinas).

Many of us do not know how to pray or do not want to pray because it is sometimes hard. When we do this, we choose not to love God. We choose to turn our back on God. We choose not to worship God as we are called to in the first commandment. This is a grave mistake because, without God, we cannot live out our mission to love others as we love ourselves.

After you celebrate the victory of getting out of bed the real challenge begins. Be prepared for the kitchen sink to be thrown at you while you start this new time with God. The zeal you had for prayer may have dwindled overnight. You might be feeling tired or have a lack of concentration. Regardless of how you feel, you must pray. As a matter of fact, you should do a little extra prayer, maybe an additional five minutes to show Satan you are committed.

Fight Through Distractions

Even if all you do is fight through distractions and feel as if it was a waste of time, you still made God happy.

Let us remember that the devil labors hard to disturb us at the time of recollection in order to make us abandon it. Let him then, who omits mental prayer on the count of distractions, be persuaded that he gives the light to the devil (St. Alphonsus Liguori).

It is certainly not easy to persevere and pray when we are distracted and struggle to concentrate. When distracting thoughts rush in, pull yourself back into the presence of God. You may want a crucifix, bible, picture, or something physical to help you with this.

If we choose to stop praying and let the temptation or distraction take us away from prayer, we are now committing a sin. Remember the first commandment? If we choose to give up on prayer we are walking away from God. Each decision we make in life brings us closer to God or takes us farther from Him.

Love is a choice, not a feeling. We must choose to love God. The most important relationship is with Our Creator and we must give God His due worship, love, and praise. If we understand why it is so important to pray we can tap into this during those rough times when we are spiritually dry or slothful.

Love: Our Meaning and Purpose

I work on my relationship with God because my purpose is to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him. I firmly believe you must know God in order to love and serve Him. If you do not spend any time getting to know Him, how can you love and serve Him?

We are called to the two greatest commandments which are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We cannot live or love the way God intended without God. Jesus Christ was our model and taught us through The Bible and the teachings of The Church. When we get to know, love, and serve God – our lives and those around us will forever be changed.

For in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).