resistance

I’m reading a short book about breaking through and unleashing creativity. (the WAR of ART by Steven Pressfield) He puts words to something I’ve felt a long time but have never been able to truly identify – that with almost every good intention, every great idea, every healthy move, every loving step … I am faced with resistance. He says,

“resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt … resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill. Its target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique and priceless gift we were put on earth to give and that no one else has but us. Resistance means business. When we fight it, we are in a war to the death.”

I’ve been trying to develop a habit of doing pullups over the past year+. Over the past 3-4 months, I’ve started the discipline at work of doing 10 or 15 pushups (thanks Brian Tome for that idea) every time I take a leak. I’m doing a year through the New Testament with a group of men – daily in the Word. I just completed a 21 days of prayer where I had to get up at 5:30am to get to church to do this. I’ve been trying to eat right – not eating out a lunchtime, eating more fruits and veggies. I’ve been trying to get back to writing here on a regular basis. I’ve been …

With every single one of these, I face the uphill battle of resistance. Every pullup sucks and hurts and is dreaded. Every pushup – even though I can already see the impact of doing them – is opposed. Every creative idea that comes to my mind is knocked down with “you can’t do that” or “that’ll never work”. Every dream is met with “Oh no, you’ll never be able to accomplish that”. Every morning trying to get to church or read my bible is met with resistance. Almost every single time I have something powerful happen and I want to share it with my wife, by the time I get home, resistance is there opposing my move towards her.

I don’t know about Pressfield’s faith but I know this force of resistance to be the enemy of our soul masking himself as this almost gravitational field that thwarts my attempts at love, at creativity, at progress. Resistance destroys all my creativity. That “unique, priceless gift” in you Pressfield speaks of is the image of God planted inside you and the enemy hates it.

If you are reading this, I want to tell you there is this certain brilliance in you. Yes, brilliance. There is a degree of genius in you. There is this creativity in you just waiting for you to discover it. You’ve tasted it. You can even vision things you want to bring into being – that can be a better marriage, hobbies to do with your son, a garden you may want to plant, a business you may want to create and build. You’ve had flashes of these pictures of what could be. And it is deeply, deeply opposed and often the door is quickly slammed shut by this force we call resistance.

Think about it the next time you want to do something special or kind or creative or outside the box. Wait for it … resistance is coming hard against this. When you feel that force of opposition, you may be onto something that is worth fighting for.

more to come on this…