Page:On The Spiritual Battle.pdf/29

 That is why one must tuck the loins of one’s mind up–so that one’s mind does not stray far from his immediate circumstances and needs. That a person can be entangled by concerns far from himself can be clearly demonstrated by the people of this world and how their thoughts are far from themselves. They are most conflicted whenever their thoughts are furthest from themselves. When the lord of Rožmberk sits in Krumlov, he is responsible to defend both Mýto and Krumlov. If what he has is burned for a distance of 15 miles, he has two sorrows. He wants to defend at home and send troops to Mýto, and he cannot accomplish both. That is why he has grief and great indignation for that which is far away, just as much as for that which is near. And the more he spreads out further across the Czech lands, the further he is from himself. Wherever he has something, he has his heart in it according to the words of the Savior, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6: 21) When people have their hearts in such far-flung things, their hearts rise and fall with the things. If the things increase and prosper, the heart lifts itself up in them with boasting, delight, and hopefulness. If the things perish and are destroyed, the heart also languishes with sorrow and humiliation. These things are temporal and subject to change, and the more a person spreads himself further out in them, the more he goes further away from himself and heaps up greater change and instability for himself.

Therefore, when the apostle teaches faithful people about spiritual battle against the cunning devil, he commands them to have their loins tucked up so that their clothing does not drag along far from them. When the devil sees that a person has many earthly things around himself and that he has his heart in them all, the devil approaches the person’s heart from anywhere he wants according to his cunning connivance. He approaches from a distance and wherever he sees rot from those things in which his heart is entangled, and he takes hold of his heart in depravity with those things. The devil is able to deceive and ensnare a person because his access and power is in what the heart is attached to. He binds it to himself and has it for his profit. Seeing that a person is attached to something for its usefulness, the devil corrupts his heart through it, leading him into other snares. A person does not establish those things for life as desired, but the devil sets a person up for death through those things. They will not be his wealth; they will be his poverty because he made a fishing hook out of them for his enemy so that he is trapped by them. The enemy finds a person’s heart distracted by them, and if he spreads them out widely, the heart cannot find anything at home, and that is a charge against him because he does not keep the commandment, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart …" (Matthew 22: 37), and so on.

For that reason the apostle commands a person to tuck up the loins of his mind in the spiritual battle so that it does not trail about around him like clothing and the enemy does not ensnare, overthrow, and kill him because he is strewn out far from himself. When he is tucked up spiritually so that he is temperate and has everything together in his heart, the devil does not have access to it through those things. In Písek, preparing for the battle, they first of all singed the entire outskirts of the city so that their besieging enemies could not defend and cover themselves behind it. They could defend themselves with the walls better this way, decimating the strength of their enemies. Here too, when a person does not make a garrison against himself out of those earthly things, shutting himself up in his heart, he has the greatest power against the devil and does not give him access to himself in anything through those things. That is why the Savior says, “So therefore whoever of you who doesn’t renounce all that he has, he can’t be my disciple.” (Luke 14: 33) A person, if he does not deny himself, cannot learn these things that the Lord Jesus teaches. He divests himself of Christ’s teaching and will not be His disciple if he would only learn but not continue in them, because the devil approaches through those earthly things and he will readily and willingly free himself from the faith of Christ and love for others. He will have sunk into stinginess, greed, laziness, debauchery, and many other wrongs. It is certain that people cannot go into God’s battle