I just wanted to share a thought that I have found encouraging.
This implies that when we feel a particular strong pull toward evil or selfish or pointless things, we are likely to have made some amount of progress recently. Or perhaps in the near future - the psyche is not too picky about such details. It just wants to restore the balance. Of course, if we allow that, if we don't resist at all and get whisked back to our equilibrium, we have kind of wasted our time both in moving forward and backward. But at least there is a chance of genuine progress, when temptations flare. It is not entirely a bad sign. It can in fact be a reason for joy - as better men than I have said, but I did not understand it back then.
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I am actually even more optimistic than that. I believe that even if it is the same old temptations that flare up, or even worse ones, it could still be a good sign. It would mean that the Resistance is getting serious about trying to rein us in, and that would mean we have started to rock the boat. The next step should be random people around us reacting, I think.
Of course temptations are not always a good thing. We may have earned them, for instance, by being careless, or by talking ourselves up. I know I have done that often enough. But in the cases where we don't find such a reason, it would be a good sign.
Trying to make us stop rocking the boat, in whatever way possible.
The Christian mystics who taught me when I was young had a wonderful song about the process of purification. It is in Norwegian so I cannot recreate its poetry, but there is a line that says "Friends and relatives do their best to comfort our Flesh" (a concept used in old Bibles to refer to our fallen nature). If they fail to calm us down, though, more adverse reactions are likely to follow. Or so I've heard. I thought I had a little experience with it, once upon a time, but I wonder now how much of that just came from my own invisible porcupine quills.
That's some wisdom. I do find that as I resist temptation internally -- I guess that's the right word -- things will often erupt on the outside. It is as if sniping failed and the enemy unleashes some artillery in my direction. I used to blame the "shell"; I am slowly learning to understand that the shell often doesn't realize how it is being used.
Of course people don't want us to shed our "sins." That is how they influence us. They offer us something we want. If you don't want or need anything, then people will react badly to that.
What people like is someone who consistently wants the same things. They provide, and then you do or say or give them something they want.
You visit Grandma. She makes you soup. You love it, slurp it up. She enjoys the company.
Next time you see Grandma, refuse the soup. She will not like it; now you've rocked the boat. Now she'll wonder, "why does she come here then? What does she want from me?"
That is the basics of how people like to arrange things. They know you by what you crave.
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