Tempations to avoid or reverse good decisions

Two spirits function within us: one encourages us and the other discourages us from doing God’s will.  We need to develop an awareness of both and decipher which one is pulling at our heart strings, so to speak.  St. Ignatius of Loyola calls the spirit of discouragement desolation.  When we are down and out that is not a time to make a new decision or change one we have already made.  In desolation the decision we are likely to make sits on sandy soil and could easily be a decision we regret when we are thinking clearly and are out of that foggy, confused state. When desolate, go apart to pray more intensely. Also talk to your spiritual director or a good friend, whom you consider wise, trustworthy and spiritually mature: put everything out on the table, so to speak.  Temptations to reverse or avoid good decisions are reduced in their potency when they are looked at in prayer and with another spiritually mature person, one, who with you, is seeking God’s will above all. Rev. Sazama, in Discernment of Spirits, gives an example of a young man who was confident of his decision to enter the seminary after graduation from college.  He had come to this decision over a three-year period and felt a lot of peace and joy, a sense of rightness, about the decision. A few months before the time of his entrance into the seminary approached, he was thrown into a lot of confusion about it. He followed this counsel not to reverse his decision—a decision  made in consolation—when thrown into turmoil.  Throughout his seminary training, he remained confident, his peace and joy returned over a subsequent five-year period.   Source: Discernment of Spirits by Warren Sazama, SJ, National Religious Vocation Conference, Chicago, IL 60615, p. 17-18.