GARBAGE IN, FLIES ABOUT: THE WAY INTERIOR FAULTS AND 'SOUL-TIES' CAN HAUNT US AND LEAD TO MISFORTUNE

Lent is a time of sacrifice, which cleanses the spirit. This is important. We all need an inner cleanse. For we all pick up grit during life on this gritty planet.

Call it "gunk." Or maybe sludge. It comes when we stray from God's designs.

Years ago, we spoke to a man who was scuba-diving in an underwater cave ("spelunking") when he got lost and couldn't recall his way out -- couldn't find how he had entered! (Can you imagine?)

This had occurred on August 15, 1992, at the Nickajack Reservoir in Tennessee.

He dove and looked and felt, edging along the stony crevices, the dark, slick rock, desperately searching for any aperture, any way out, but finding nothing. One can imagine the terror. And pretty soon, his tanks were running out of oxygen.

Fortunately, there was an air pocket at the top of the cavern, and this scuba diver surfaced up to it, hanging on to a stalactite. We reported on this years ago. He held on and waited and waited and minutes passed and turned into hours and soon he had been hanging on for half a day -- knowing that the oxygen in that bubble of air was also going to tap out.

He wasn't a very spiritual man. "To give you an idea," he said, "my nickname was 'Dirty Dave.'" Dave Gant. A logger from Alabama.

Finally dawned on him to pray.

As soon as he did, he said he felt like a large hand came down through his head through his being to the very depths of his soul, grabbing all the "gunk" that was in him -- the spiritual darkness -- and pulling it out. There in that cave, hanging on for dear life, he felt wonderful! Fear was no more.

The hand entered a second time and took out that much more and Dave felt that much better -- truly well, better than he ever had. He was purging as he hung from his own "cross" as Jesus hung from a Cross to purge us.

The third and last time the hand entered -- removing yet more gunk, the final dregs -- Gant said he had felt so good, so clean, so ecstatic, that trapped or not, ready to die or not, on the verge of suffocation, he began shouting and singing praises to God!

Soon after, and miraculously, he was rescued.

But the point had been made:

There was gunk that had to be removed from his soul and sometimes it takes dramatically "bad" events before we purge it.

This is God in His mercy.

He leads us to inner cleanliness, lest we be marks for evil.

For just as trash attracts flies and rodents, so is it that spiritual gunk attracts forces of darkness (and the "misfortunes" that give us the opportunity to purge it).

Get the gunk out of you, and the flies and rats disappear (or greatly diminish: there are always struggles here on earth).

Remove the gunk yourself and often you can avoid troubling events.

You won't be hanging by the thread of a stalactite.

Frequently the Lord heals, blesses, and delivers only after we reach a place of humility, forgiveness, and repentance -- until we get rid of all the clutter. This gunk may be blocking blessings that God seeks to rain down on you.

Ask God to reach in as if with His Hand through your head to the bottom of your spirit, your soul, this Lent, during Confession, in the midst of a fast, and remove any trash that has accumulated through sin, bad habits, guilt, anger, lack of forgiveness (including of self), jealousy, lust, materialism, pride (this is especially important), or past relationships. In this regard -- relationships -- we often have to break unhealthy "soul ties." They too are "gunk." Negative ties can include ex-wives, former bosses, teachers, employers, employees, parents, siblings, relatives, or anyone who played a major role in your life at some juncture. If you have not forgiven someone, you have a negative tie to whoever you have not forgiven -- forgiven and forgotten. Pornography causes a soul tie with whomever is in the pornography. The occult is especially strong. When soul ties are broken, the "garbage" can be "taken out."

"The souls of men and women can knit together with negative repercussions," a deliverance minister once explained. "A domineering mother's soul knitted to her son's, and he ended up in an insane asylum suffering from schizophrenia. When the woman cut the spiritual umbilical cord and cast it off, the son recovered instantly and several days later left the asylum normal. Manipulation and control by another person may create negative soul ties."

"Often the souls of ex-lovers knit together, even though they may no longer see each other," says this writer, Richard Ing. "They may marry others, but they continue to be tormented by thoughts of the former lover. Strange circumstances may bring them together, and they bump into each other at unlikely times and places. Even if their relationship ended on a sour note, they often think of, fantasize about, and lust for each other. Their soul ties need to be broken and cast off." The Lord's designs need to be rediscovered.

They are often buried under that sludge.

Through Confession, we begin to break the hold, the weight, of inner trash. Expiation furthers the process. When we fast, the process speeds up greatly. We are not nearly as prone to the daily deceptions, whisperings, and temptations of the devil. As John Paul II said during the Angelus on March 9, 2003, “In the inner heart of every person the Voice of God and the insidious voice of the Evil One can be heard. The latter seeks to deceive the human person, seducing him with the prospect of false goods, to lead him away from the real good that consists precisely in fulfilling the Divine Will.”

[see also: The incredible story of Dave Gant]

[Resources: A Life of Blessings and Breaking Soul-Ties]

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