What it means that if something is moving, it'll keep moving in that direction at that speed, or if it's sitting still, it'll keep sitting still; in both cases, until something pushes or pulls at it. I would have used the word "momentum," but "inertia" seemed more inclusive.
I believe that there's such a thing as spiritual inertia. If you're already headed in the right direction, spiritually, it'll take some effort on Satan's part to get you off of it. If you find yourself headed the wrong direction, it'll take effort on your part to change your course. It also takes effort to speed up or slow down. Yet, some changes are easier to make than others - so easy, in fact, that they seem to require no effort at all. Here's why:
If you put a ball in a weightless vacuum, and threw it, it would keep going in the same direction at the same speed until it hit something. If you took that same ball to a baseball park and threw it with the same force, aiming horizontal to the ground, the ball would slow down, alter course, hit the ground, maybe bounce a few times, then roll to a stop. Most objects are not in weightless vacuums, and neither are we, not even spiritually.
Air resistance and gravity slowed down and ultimately stopped the imaginary baseball we threw in the make-believe park. Similar forces war working against us in our quest for spiritual progress. The forces of earth and hell are constantly pulling us down and holding us back, yet, like gravity and wind-resistance, they can be overcome. Though, just as with gravity and wind-resistance, it takes constant effort to continuously overcome those negative forces.
But here's the good news (or the bad news, as the case may be), gravity and wind-resistance aren't the only forces at work here. There is also inertia. Because of inertia, it takes effort to change our course and speed. The more determined we are to stay on the right path, the harder it is for Satan to pull us off-course, but because he's always trying to pull us off-course, it requires constant effort on our part just to stay the course.
On the other hand, if we're already falling, we need to fight both inertia and gravity in order to stop falling. In other words, once we've developed a bad habit, we need to resist both the force of habit and the temptations of Satan in order to change our ways.
The moral of the story is that each decision matters. Every right decision we make gives us a little push in the right direction, making it easier to make good decisions in the future. Every bad decision gives us a little push in the wrong direction, making it more likely that we'll continue to succumb to temptation. Spiritual inertia is another one of those unseen forces that can make a real difference in our spiritual lives. I hope that we will all do a little bit better at trying to make good decisions, even small ones, to help us build up powerful, positive, spiritual momentum.
1 comment:
Powerful reminder. Sometimes we get tired or lazy or just want to relax and we think this little thing doesn't matter. But you are right, every decision gives us a little push in one direction or another. We must always keep at least leaning in the right direction. Thanks for giving me a good little push.
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