Understanding our spiritual distractions

By Stephen Ojapah MSP

Be sober; be vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat. Stand up to him strong in faith (1 Peter 5: 8-9). This text is preceded by the words of Saint Peter in verse 7, when he said, ‘cast all your anxiety upon him because he cares for you’.  There is a law Saint Peter is trying to establish here, and that is the law of Christian effort and the law of Christian vigilance. He said we must be sober and watchful. The fact that we cast everything upon God does not give us the right to sit back and do nothing. The advice of the Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, to his troops was: ‘Trust in God, and keep your powder dry, ‘ Peter knew how hard this vigilance was, for he remembered how in Gethsemane he and his fellow disciples had slept when they should have been watching with Christ (Matthew 26:38-46). 

Christians are men and women who trust but at the same time put all their effort and their vigilance into the business of living for Christ. Another important law proposed by Saint Peter is the Law of Christian resistance. The devil is always out to see whom he can ruin. Again, Saint Peter must have been remembering how the devil had overcome him and he denied his Lord. Our faith must be like a solid wall against which the attacks of the devil exhaust themselves in vain. The devil is like any bully, and retreats when he is bravely resisted in the strength of Jesus Christ.

The spiritual distractions around us are numerous and often we are not able to name and get hold of them. Saint Peter has offered us some laws to get hold of what we go through daily in life, namely; being sober, vigilant, and having a strong faith. Dom Lorenzo Scupoli in his book The Spiritual Combat, said: “All earthly things, except those absolutely necessary, must die through our complete disregard for them, even though they are not wrong in themselves. We must control our minds and not permit them to wander aimlessly about. Our minds must become insensible to mundane projects, to gossip to the feverish search for news. Our indifference to the affairs of this world must give them a dream-like quality. 

But how ‘impossible’ to live in the 21st century without thinking of mundane projects which is   one of the major causes of spiritual distractions. Sadly, Technology has taken mundane projects to high seat of ‘honor’ and ‘prestige’, that many people are eager to associate with it, a clear mark of progress and achievement is to be associated with such mundane projects. Nigeria just wrapped up the airing of big brother NIJA:  A reality TV show that kept house mates in one house for weeks. A live broadcast that kept the house mates in the public eye, with all the decent and indecent scenes. These men and women are seen by so many companies and young stars as role models. And they are accorded the honor and title of a celebrity, a public ambassador for so many advertisement. I don’t want to go into the deeper analysis of the time wastage and resources for want of time, but this is why I feel it’s one of the spiritual distractions of our time and a mundane project: There are so many deceases and sicknesses that have ravage our country and our world. Imagine if young brilliant Nigerians were assembled with such resources and given the task of thinking through the problems and coming up with solutions. That would have been a project that will edify the mind and give glory to God.

Gossip is another spiritual distraction of our generation. In Nigeria, women are often referred to as gossips, majorly because of those who are idle or fulltime housewives. It is almost presumed that their joblessness, will naturally elicit idle talk and vain chatter. But experience has shown that reverse is the case, men do more of the gossips and vain chatter even with their so called busy schedules. Gossips are not about men or women. Thousands of men and women engage in it at the expense of their spiritual lives. And sometimes even when it means spreading fake rumors about a brother or a sister. 

Fake news has gained international status, there are untrue stories of people and events spreading like wildfire every day and everywhere. The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp have had to testify before so many Country’s Houses of Assembly and the US Congress as a result of fake news that is been propagated using their applications  . Very often at the end of the fake rumor or news, the destroyed persons never get back the lives again. So many funding agencies have committed millions of dollars to fighting fake news. For me as Christian and a priest, understanding fake rumor as spiritual distraction, is a big step in fighting the scourge.

Feverish search for news is one big spiritual distraction also. It is almost in the same category with fake news. While feverish search for news acts like a subject, gossips acts like an object. In feverish search for news, the individual engages in what Saint Paul refers to as busy bodies (2 Thessalonian 3:11). We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Going about in search of what to report by all means. St Paul will say these people are “interfering with everyone else’s’. And doing no work themselves.  Such persons are everywhere in our systems. 

Finally, it’s difficult to always understand spiritual things, as they are not sensible to our biological sensors. All of our physical actions have spiritual benefits or defects. To understand them well we must be men and women who pay less attention to the material and mundane things which only weigh down the soul.  

Fr Stephen Ojapah is a priest of the Missionary Society of St Paul. He is equally the director for Interreligious Dialogue and Ecumenism for the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, a member of IDFP. He is also a KAICIID Fellow