A friend of ours treated us to the movie The Dawn Treader over the New Year Holiday. What a great movie as are all the Narnia stories. As is often the case with me there was one line in the whole movie that I could not get out of my mind. It stayed with me throughout the rest of the movie and the rest of the holiday.

Aslan was talking to Eustace who had been changed into a dragon and who needed to be changed back into not the boy that he was, but into the boy he was meant to be.

Eustace was in such pain and torment and Aslan said to him, “To conquer the darkness out there, we first have to conquer the darkness inside.”

I came home and picked up a book I have been reading by Graham Cooke and there it was again. He said, “We have to win the internal battle before we can win the external one.”

Oh that battle that we all go through. I sometimes wonder if it will ever be done. And that's the thing isn't it. I would love if it were a one time deal and we could just get on with it. However, I have found that it is a daily battle that we have to contend with and that we are not able to do it without the help of the Holy Spirit who is the teacher, comforter, strength and help that we need to conquer.

For me there are things that we can be rid of once and for all, and there are those things that are a constant giving over to the Lord in order to win the battle. And in that there must be a willingness to always be open and ready to deal with those things that are holding us captive.

Some of us won't go there at all, even when the Lord himself brings the darkness to the forefront to deal with it. We are either blind to the understanding of it, or we are in too much pain, numb, or feel it's everyone else.

Be that as it may, the fact is that we will always be in need of forgiveness, deliverance, healing, etc. The things we want to do we don't do, the things we do we don't want to do. But Praise Be To God! He is the one who brings His light and grace and what ever else is needed in any and every situation.

There is a life process that we are all involved in on the journey and the thing I have come to realize is that the process is always there. The bigger question is are we willing to submit to that process and when the Lord fingers something, to take the time to see what He says about it and show us how he wants to deal with it. It is that openness and honesty before God that allows Him to deliver, heal and strengthen for the journey.

Let's face it. We are pretty limited in what we can deal with out there until we deal with what's in our hearts and then we will be able to comfort those with the comfort we have been given.