Giving: A Result of Gratitude

Having chosen by an act of will to be grateful for our many blessings and having chosen to pray for God to correct our emotions to bring them into line with the fact of our gratitude. We next should consider an appropriate response to this new attitude.  What action should we take? I suggest we look at our blessings, note how we have enough, we have what we need, and can recognize how blessed we are in this. From here we should turn out eyes outward, to the news we hear and read, the Christian martyrs in Syria and surrounding … Continue reading

Preparation for Spiritual Warfare: Gratitude

Preparation for Spiritual Warfare takes many shapes. Confession, aka Sacrament of Reconciliation, is always a good place to begin, but another very good beginning is GRATITUDE. An act of will is a good way to begin with any virtue and can be chosen even in the face of uncooperative emotions. Feelings are not fact!  It is not essential to FEEL a virtue to HAVE that virtue.  I’m grateful as an axiom. Still, I wanted to feel the emotion of gratitude, not just the fact of it. Recently, we had a fire that cost a lot in lost equipment and there was … Continue reading

Prayer Warrior 101

Scripture is clear that our enemies are not the people whom we see before us but the principalities and powers in the spiritual realm who are driving the evil being done by our obvious human enemies. History is full of endless rounds of futile violence that generally cycles back around years after it seems to have all been settled. WHY? Because of sin of course. We all KNOW this if we know anything about our faith, but it is so basic, so obvious, that most of us give it no thought at all. Yet, that sin is the hook that … Continue reading