Spiritual Highs

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The majority of us are familiar with the infamous ‘spiritual
highs’ we almost inevitably obtain in going to summer camp, spring break
mission trips, and the like.  I’ve
experienced them a million times.  It’s
as if you’re on cloud nine when you come home to America.  You see everything differently and you have
that spirit pulsating through your veins that says, “I can change the
world!  I’m a spiritual giant!”  And then after less than a week… you feel
depressed… and anything but gigantic.

Nothing can crush one’s spirit quicker than our life’s
worldly reality.  I think that’s probably
what the devil somehow wants us to slip back into.  Once our awareness of the world around us is
engraved back into our minds and our hearts we feel defeated, overrun, and all
hope seems lost.  It’s as if what we were
living was some sort of fantasy, some sort of dream, and anything far from a
lifestyle worth living.

We’re crushed.

I guess one could technically call the World Race 11 short
term mission trips back-to-back-to-back… and then some.  Throughout the course of the year you
experience numerous spiritual highs and lows, but you’re always in that ‘element’
– you’re always in that place where the Truth of real Reality is always
present.  There is no worldly mindset to
easily imprison yourself back in. 

Simplicity of living life is predominant… yet the
complexities of spiritual warfare are just as dense.

It’s one thing to experience a spiritual high at a summer
camp, come home, and then feel deflated. 
It’s another to go through an entire year of ups and downs only to
return home and, once again, feel completely crushed.  But I suppose a year on the World Race can do
that to a person.  It almost trains them
to expect it and trains them in ways to deal with it.

Sometimes it’s easy to get down on yourself because you’re
walking what seems like a broken Christian walk.  No matter how hard you try, you seem to fall
back into the same habits and temptations that you experienced before your
spiritual pilgrimage. 

But it’s all the illusion of a lie.

We too easily forget who we are, what’s happened to us, and
we deny the spiritual reality of it all – the eternal effects that have taken
place in our lives.  How do you overcome
what seems like the defeat of spiritual highs?

You remember who you are, who you’ve become, and let NOTHING
speak to you or influence you otherwise.