When I start seeing common threads running through books that have caught my attention, I tend to take it as an important life lesson God is trying to teach me.<\/p>\n\n\n
I was recently rereading Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art<\/i> after hearing him interviewed on a podcast and I was reminded of a basic idea which is starting to take root in my mind: the author’s concept of “Resistance”.<\/p>\n\n\n
Pressfield’s entire book is about how humans must overcome Resistance in all its various forms – fear, procrastination, drama, etc – if we have any hope of fulfilling our purpose in life.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Here’s a good summary from Pressfield early in the book:<\/p>\n\n\n
“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” (In the chapter called The Unlived Life<\/i>, no page numbers.)<\/p>\n\n\n
As I am starting into Nathaniel Branden’s The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, I am realizing although Pressfield is an artist and Branden is an academic, the two authors are talking about the same subject.<\/p>\n\n\n
In his introduction, Branden writes, “Underneath all my work, the core idea I wanted to teach was: Your life is important. Honor it. Fight for your highest possibilities<\/i>.”\u00a0 (p.xii, emphasis in original)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Both acknowledge two levels of life – in biblical terms, the natural man and the spiritual man.<\/p>\n\n\n
Both acknowledge a struggle against forces intent on keeping us down – in biblical terms, the flesh which needs to be crucified.<\/p>\n\n\n
And both hold out the hope that anyone can live at the higher level – the “abundant life” which Jesus offers.<\/p>\n\n\n
Pressfield writes, “If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended.”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I have wrestled with Resistance since childhood and, at 55, I am finally starting to get the upper hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
THIS is getting to the core of life and to the main problem of life and THIS is why I love to read.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I start seeing common threads running through books that have caught my attention, I tend to take it as an important life lesson God is trying to teach me. I was recently rereading Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art after hearing him interviewed on a podcast and I was reminded of a basic idea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5131,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5130\/revisions\/5131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}