Wrestling Against Evil

Speaking of the condition of man in the world, St Paul attests that we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places. Today‘s Gospel tells a heartbreaking story of a nobleman, stripped down
by life, but whose faith in Jesus’ words brought salvation into his household. “And now abideth
faith, hope, love: these three” (1 Cor. 13:13).
 
The opposite of faith is fear; of hope, despair; and of love, indifference. Doubt, is like a spiritual
drought, a starless night of the soul, a low tide when faith seems to have retreated forever. Nearly
all of us experience these dry, dark, difficult times when God doesn’t seem real and it’s hard to keep
going, much less growing. Fear is the default mode of the soul that dwells in darkness and regards
the empirical world and its flux as ultimately real…and therefore “sees in order to believe”. The
life of faith, on the other hand, looks beyond the realm of appearances to behold an abiding
glory…and therefore “believes in order to see”. How we choose to see is ultimately a spiritual
decision for which we are each responsible.