“The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art: Break Though the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Since discipline is good for us, and we all know it is, why resist it with such fury? 

My guess is we resist for the same reason Adam and Eve resisted listening – we’re in a spiritual battle. When we deny our destiny and die to what God wants for us, we worship Resistance.  

Adam and Eve’s devil showed up in the Garden of Eden as a snake. These days, that same devil shows up as Resistance. 

Pressfield said resistance is what stands between the life we live and the life we want to live. He calls it “the most toxic force on the planet,” so toxic that he blames a war on it. Hitler wanted to be an artist, but Pressfield said, “It was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.” 

My resistance doesn’t typically involve some big bad mistake. If I skip walking one day, my day is worse. Not life-changingly worse, but worse. Skip walking for a year and I gained 25 pounds. Resistance caught up with me. I ended up heavier and unhealthier than I’d ever been, and disheartened.

For me, not walking made it easier to make more unhealthy choices like sleeping more, eating more, and writing less.   

When I think about our callings in life, they parallel what Michelangelo said about one of his sculptures, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

God wants us free.   

Steven Pressfield said something similar about us, “Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some idea we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”

God wants us to become who He made us to be. 

The antidote to resistance is not fighting against it, but fighting to do what we’re supposed to be doing. That’s why Pressfield’s book is titled The War of Art. We’re at war against the devil named Resistance. The antidote is discipline. Yeah, I didn’t like hearing that either, but I’m more miserable when I give in and don’t fight. 

If we stop resisting and allow God as our sculptor, He’ll set us free like Michelangelo set free the angel. God made us for a purpose. When we worship Him instead of worshiping Resistance, He’ll chip away everything that’s keeping us from that purpose. 

I’ll warn you from personal experience, though, make sure you want your freedom from the marble slab. He’s a prayer-answering God. By that, I mean He really will chip away everything that is keeping you from your destiny. If you still resist, He’ll allow you to be more tormented than you’ve ever been in your life. 

This is good news when you finally beat resistance and you’re set free. 

What do you wish you were doing, but you’re not? You already know mine. God already knows all of our answers, but tell Him anyway, ask for His help (I begged), and tell us, too, if you want some accountability.  

In This Together,
Kim