Empty Home
Once you choose to rid your life of demons, how difficult is it to stay the course?
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting-place, but it finds none. Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came. When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation. - Matthew 12:43-45
In today's Gospel, Jesus warns of falling back into bad habits and addiction.
He uses the analogy of a home that has been cleared of its tenants and left empty. With no protection nor anyone to replace the bad tenant, the home is vulnerable and the bad tenant can move back in, bringing friends.
How difficult it is to evict a tenant that refuses to leave!
If we are going to go through the hard work of removing the bad influences in our lives, we have to replace them with good, or they will find their way back and return with a vengeance.
I have met several people who are struggling to turn their lives around, and regardless of the demon that afflicts them, the one thing they have in common is torment from the people around them who refuse to do as they are doing.
Influences can be deadly.
These are the evil spirits waiting to enter and party in the empty house.
They find little resistance because the one looking to change is alone and struggling.
To succeed, they need to take up a new boarder, the Holy Spirit.
When we invite the Hoy Spirit in, we are strengthened. We can say "No" to those who seek to bring us down, because we know we are not alone and we are no longer vulnerable.
What I believe Jesus was telling us is the work of redemption and repair is only begun with the healing process. It needs to continue in our hands with the renewal.
It is our job to stay the course and we have help in the advocate He sent to be with us.
It is not for us to judge those who fail to stay the course, but to find it in our hearts to understand and to help, with prayer and action.
If we let the Spirit guide us, we can be ab instrument of redemption for others as well as for ourselves.
In the end, we are all empty dwelling places without God. So, let us fill our homes with God's love and grace, and let the new tenant, the Spirit of God, drive away all who seek to destroy.
More to come...