Many religions believe there is a negative force that’s out there in our world. Some choose to call it Satan. Others choose to call it Lucifer. Me? I just choose to call it darkness. And the truth is, it really is all around us, always trying to attack us in a multitude of ways.
The most interesting think about the darkness that exists in our world is that it seems to leave us alone when we’re already out there creating darkness. But what I discovered in recent years is that it really doesn’t leave us alone during those times, it just keeps putting things in our path that leads us into even more darkness.
Here are a few random examples of what this may look like:
1. You’ve become an active gambler in your life. It’s beginning to consume you but you haven’t reached a stage of where it’s tearing your life apart yet. You find yourself in a casino and have spent all the cash you brought in except for your last $20. You decide to bet it all on something and suddenly you win $2000 which tempts you to gamble more.
2. You’re in a monogamous relationship that’s not going very well. You develop a friendship with someone you’re attracted to because of this. The other person finds you attractive as well and starts seeking you out for comfort which lures you towards cheating.
3. You’re regularly stealing from a job you’re working at. You do it just enough where it’s going unnoticed. But the door is somehow left open one day to a safe that you normally don’t have access to. In it is an abundance of cash which beckons you to steal it.
These are just a few of the infinite ways that darkness will continue to consume a person when they are already actively engaging in darkness related behaviors. But what happens to those people who finally choose to move away from those behaviors? Well that’s when the darkness really starts trying to attack you and this is something I have a lot of experience with.
Two years ago I chose to completely walk away from all the darkness related behaviors I was doing. To do this I had to cut the cords to every toxic person in my life that was leading me continuously back into those behaviors. I also had to delete every photo, phone number, and any other thing I had in my possession that occasionally lured me into doing those behaviors. Initially it was an easy thing to do because the pain had grown so great with me living in a tremendous amount of darkness regularly. I was willing to do just about anything to get rid of the pain. But as I began to feel better from separating myself from all those things, that’s when darkness really started attacking me.
Here are a few examples of what I mean by that:
1. Phone calls and e-mails would come in from people that I once had great sexual flings with but had lost contact with long ago.
2. Incredible pain would surface in my body at those precise moments where an option arose to drink alcohol or take drugs to deal with it.
3. In doing normal internet research, pornographic pop-ups would suddenly surface even when my research was nowhere in the realm that material like that should surface.
Of course, these too are only just a few of the infinite ways that darkness attempts to come at you once you’re trying to move away from it completely. Unfortunately, there’s another angle as well that darkness tries to lure you back in with. It seems to happen most when you aren’t giving in to any of these direct personal attacks. And that’s when it chooses to attack the things closest to you that aren’t in your ability to control.
Here are a few examples of how this has happened in my life:
1. Discovering my partner committed an act of indiscretion.
2. Hearing my partner’s family members openly express their disapproval of me.
3. Watching friends and family members judge me harshly.
It truly is challenging trying to deal with all of the attacks that darkness keeps trying to send my way. Just when I think I’m starting to get stronger and resist each of its distinct ways it finds to come at me, another one is slung my way. Sometimes it’s crazy health issues that arise, one after another, that overwhelm me completely and make me want to give up in any number of dark ways. Other times, it’s something even as crazy as looking out a window in my home and seeing a neighbor in the middle of a sexual act that tempts me to become a regular voyeur.
Regardless of when and how darkness ever chooses to attack me, the worst is when it comes one after another in a short period of time. I’ve learned the only solution for times like this, or any time for that matter, is to pray.
There’s not a day that goes by anymore where I’m not praying diligently to the God of my understanding to help me resist all of the sneaky ways that darkness tries to beckon me back within its grips. The truth is that I don’t ever want to go back to living in it ever again and I know the more I feel this way, the more it will try to find unique ways to draw me back into it. But I believe that will never happen as long as I keep praying for the strength to resist it.
When and how darkness chooses to attack a person is different for everyone. But the way to resist it is the same in each case. So if you are someone who is struggling with this, then I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and start praying to the God of your understanding for help. I can promise you in doing so that you will soon find the ability to start resisting any darkness that may try to attack you. And know the more you are able to do this, the more light you will have to shine it away, not just in your life, but in many others too.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson