Do you really want it?

When I read the first reading today, I remembered something I read before. Sometimes, we ask people to pray for us – for us to change and be free from bad habits and vices like smoking, drugs, alcohol, pornography, unhealthy relationships. However, sometimes their prayers don’t seem to work at all, it seems that we’re not making any progress. When this happens, maybe we forgot something. What about ourselves? We should ask ourselves, do I really want to change? Do I really want to let go of these things? Do I really want to be free? Or am I just hoping that the prayers of others would set me free, and I just continue while waiting for that to happen?

God tells us clearly in the first reading:

So submit yourselves to God.
Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

We should resist the enemy, and as we resist the enemy, we should submit ourselves to God. We should draw near to God. Yes, we cannot do it alone, we should ask God’s help for it. But there should be an effort on our part. We should want to be free from all that is of the enemy, we should want to resist the enemy.  As we turn away from the enemy, God wants us to welcome him into our lives. Jesus says in the gospel, that we should welcome the little ones. We should welcome him into our lives, no matter how little or how foolish the world may seem to portray him.

As we turn to God, we are comforted by the psalmist. Throw your cares on God and he will support you. Whatever concerns you may have, whatever challenges, whatever needs, we just need to turn into God. There is nothing too big or too small for Him.

Do I really want to be free from all that is not of God, or do I just pass the burden on other people, asking for prayers without doing anything, and hoping their prayers would change me? Do I ask God to give me the desire to resist the enemy and to follow him wholeheartedly? What are the things that I should be free of? Am I doing something about it?

Have a blessed day!