Anyone who has been to a retreat can probably relate to the feeling of being on a “Spiritual High” with their love for Jesus. All people seem to have a different life span for this spiritual high. It can last for a week, a month, a few months, or some people can make it last even longer than that if they really try hard. The problem is that it does seem to fade after a while no matter how hard you try to keep it there.
Why does this happen? If we really connect with our love for Jesus and really get to know him during our retreat, shouldn’t this feeling last forever? Well, the answer is yes, and no. Yes it should last forever, but since we are human and allow other things to take precedent in our lives, it just doesn’t happen automatically. Does that mean we are horrible people? Not at all!
In order to make this feeling stay with us, we need to give it constant attention. Try to relate your faith to eating food. If you only eat once a day, you will probably have cravings for other things throughout the day, but if you spread out the food throughout the day, you will more than likely not be hungry. You may still have desires and cravings, but you will be much less likely to pursue them since you are thinking correctly and can see clearly that the food cravings you may have are not the best choices. Think about it for a second…if we treated our faith the same way, and gave it the attention it deserves, we may not be so easily tempted to stray from the right path.
That means exercising your faith life constantly. Below are some key points that will help you stay on the right path with Jesus and prevent you from your other cravings.
- Go to church every Sunday without fail. No excuses – get there and go with your family!
- Go to confession at least every other month. If you don’t think you have something to confess – think harder!
- Say prayers before every meal. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Keep God first consciously.
- Before your feet hit the floor in the morning and after you wake up (obviously), give God thanks for another day full of opportunities.
- Before going to sleep, pray and give thanks for everything (yes everything) that happened during the day. You may not understand if you feel something not so good happened, but thank God for knowing you are able to handle whatever it is you are facing and ask for strength.
These 5 key points will help greatly if you do them regularly. Remember that you need to eat more than once in a while…keep your faith life on high and give full attention to God!
