Prayer is one of the glories we can already enjoy in this life, for it is a ladder by which God descends to us and we ascend to Him. However, even in our prayer life we are not exempt from the stresses that correspond to our earthly existence and we have to endure all kinds of disturbances. But God, in His wisdom, makes use of it all.
Yesterday we had begun to speak about the so-called “sufferings in prayer”, among which we had mentioned distractions and dryness of feeling. Today we want to continue with some others…
- Aversion to prayer
When an intense prayer life is cultivated, it is possible that there appears an aversion or a dislike to prayer, to the Word of God, and to religious things in general. Everything seems meaningless! This can have different causes. On the one hand, the Devil is always interested in dissuading us from advancing in the spiritual life and he acts by means of suggestions, wanting to influence our thoughts and feelings. On the other hand, reluctance can also come from our human nature, which rebels against the demands of faith and, in one way or another, says: “I don’t want any more”.
This situation must be faced with wisdom. We can simply confess our love to God, tell Him that we do not want such feelings, even though we feel them within ourselves. Here we make a clear distinction: If I do not consent with my freedom to negative thoughts and feelings, I am offering them resistance, even with the “tip” of my will. In this case, the aversion is not consented to, so that it cannot unfold its destructive potential either.