The Eternal Battle of Resistance vs. Creative Inspiration
The Snake vs. the Spirit
The snake sits at the door of ego asking, “Did God really say?”
The Spirit sits at the door of self and says, “I did — can you believe?”
Steven Pressfield, in his amazing, must-read if-you’re-a-creator-of-any-kind book, The War of Art, talks about Resistance. Yes, with a capital R.
He uses many metaphors to describe the resistance we all feel when we want to create, improve ourselves, or follow a calling or purpose that feels beyond us.
He harkens to what Elizabeth Gilbert calls Big Magic. You may know it as Inspiration or the Muse. It’s the magic that takes place when ideas form, we pick up the pen, the paintbrush, the needle and thread, and we fall into flow.
We lose ourselves in this timeless and fluid place where creativity seems effortless until Resistance parks its big fat rear on our chest and squeezes the creativity out of us with tactics such as fear, procrastination, perfectionism, and self-doubt.
Resistance can also partner with the inner critic that beats you up and reminds you of all your shortcomings and past failures.
No matter how we name it, describe it, package it, or illustrate it, Resistance is the enemy.
As a Christian you know we have a very real adversary. His MO is to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:19). Anything and everything. Not just our faith or our relationship with God, but our confidence to create, to pursue those dreams that pound inside our chest every day.
His strategy is as old as time. You put your fingers to the keyboard to work on the book you believe God wants you to bring to life, and that creepy old snake sidles up to you and hisses…. “But did God really say?”
He’s incessant, he strikes when our confidence is at its highest. He hates routine because he knows it creates momentum, so he is constantly looking for ways to distract us.
He meets us at the place where we’re weakest: the flesh, as Paul calls it, and ego as psychiatrists describe it. Call it what you like, it’s our lowest or basest place. The seat where fear festers and self-protection mode goes into overdrive.
It’s the part of us that rants about how everything is a risk and how it’s best to stay curled up in a tight bud, look out for numero uno, and stop trusting!
The ego hates creation because it fears change, and when we create, we change, we grow, and we thrive.
A pop quiz: who despises our growth? That’s right, the enemy, resistance.
Who loves growth? Who is the author of creation, life, abundance, and thriving? Yes, the lover of your soul.
Where do we connect with our Creator? Not in the flesh, not in ego, but in our higher self, the soul if you will. That’s the part of us that wants to do better, wants to trust, wants to take a risk, and believes we did hear a higher calling to serve, to write, to start our own business or non-profit.
Self dares to believe in upgrades, miracles, healing, reconciliation, transformation, the gift of eternal life, the power of words that flow from our fingertips (from a mysterious force we know not how) that reach a reader’s hurting or longing heart and help them believe for a moment that God cares enough to lead them to the words we penned.
How can we connect with God from the soul and keep the ego at bay?
Routines build momentum and keep procrastination and confusion at bay. Routines keep us from getting distracted from our most important tasks. Build routines into your life and you’ll take ground from the enemy!
Affirmations remind us to stay focused and keep us in sync with what we know to be true. Affirmations help us reframe negative thinking into positive thinking.
Prayer keeps us connected to God, the source of all inspiration and creativity. Prayer keeps us grounded, centered, and humble. Praying regularly helps us see the ways the enemy tries to derail us. Meeting with God routinely keeps our discernment sharp and our hearts awake.
His words of truth. I am who he says I am. I can do what he says I can do. I have purpose because he says I have purpose. The Bible is our roadmap.
When I am reading scripture, I like to turn important verses into prayer, reminders, and affirmations, making the Bible personal to me and my spiritual and creative journey.
Here is an example of a verse that spoke to me about my purpose and my creative work and here is how I reframed it into a prayerful, daily reminder.
Because we know that this extraordinary day is just ahead, we pray for you all the time — pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s called you to be, pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something. (2 Thessalonians 1:11, MSG)
How I make this verse my own personal prayer:
Lord, fill my good ideas and acts of faith with your energy so that they all amount to something.
Will. The enemy can come at us over and over and use different strategies, but the one thing he can’t do is get us to give up. That choice is entirely our own!
Fight this battle with this verse:
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9, NIV)
Turn this into an affirmation prayer:
I do not grow weary doing good. At the proper time I will reap a harvest if I do not give up.
Humility. In all that we do we must remember that the work is holy but the outcome is not up to us. As Paul reminds us,
…neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. (I Corinthians 3:6–8, NKJV)
Resistance is nothing more than the enemy in multiple disguises. And now that you know, you know how to fight him!
Mary has been floundering against resistance for almost 20 years since God called her to write. She’s winning the battle now by decluttering her soul and making space for what she wants to grow in her life. You can join her in soul decluttering by joining The Decluttered Soul.