The Tricks of the Devil and How to Avoid Them

The easiest way to avoid temptation is to keep our eyes on God. The thing is, that it is hard to not fall into sin. I’m just going to say it. The devil is a lot more clever than what we give him credit for, but there’s something else… sometimes we do his job for him. I know. I know. It sounds awful, and sometimes we want to blame him for everything, and we want to say that he put thoughts in our heads, but the thing that he can’t do is sin for us. After all, we have free will. When I was growing up, I was told that the devil had two great tricks. The first one is to make us think that he is not real. This way, everything evil is either God’s fault or humanity’s fault, but either way we lose our hope. Oh, bonus of this little trick, we never actually ask God to guard us against him because we think he doesn’t exist. Clever, huh? The second is for us to think that he is responsible for everything. This way, we always live scared of him, and we focus more on what he can do to harm us than the fact that CHRIST LITERALLY ALREADY WON!

As you might notice, the whole devil topic totally and completely infuriates me, so today I want to inspire you to avoid the tactics that he has up his sleeve. How? Well, by calling him out on what I have noticed and learned. Before I do that, I want to put a disclaimer here. I am writing this article today because today I fell. I fell hard. I had the perfect opportunity to be better. I had the perfect opportunity to look at Jesus and say, “I trust you”. I had made my mind to do so, but I opened my mouth and I did exactly the opposite. However, God is lending me a bit more of life to try to be better. So, I think, if we keep in mind what we’re up against, then we can know what to ask God for help against.

Again, I insist that we should always keep our eyes on God, but I do think it’s important to say this. A friend and I went to a conference on demonology and Adam Blai (if you don’t know him, he is amazing look him up) told us something along the lines of “Look, if the devil jumped out of your closet with horns and fangs you would take your things and run to church. That would obviously defeat the purpose”. So, here I present to you another trick that the devil has. He works many times by being subtle. C.S. Lewis talks about something similar in the Screwtape Letters. Once you begin to remember that God is beautiful, he will remind you that you are hungry. Once you begin to pray the Rosary, he will remind you that you are tired. Once you think of forgiving someone, he will remind you of your wounds. Suddenly, without realizing it, we are reminding ourselves of all those things without his help.

How to avoid this? Keep close to God. How? Pray. So when should we pray? Always. I was discerning my vocation once, but at the same time I had met a guy in adoration and so you can imagine my struggle. “God, I’m literally trying to see if I want to give up marriage and spend my life in prayer clinging to You and You introduce me to a boy in CHURCH who is Catholic and really sweet and taller than me (I’m tall so this was a big deal to me) and he has the same rosary as me (story for another time). Don’t You think that’s just sending me mixed signals?” In retrospect, no, He wasn’t sending me mixed signals. It was a pretty clear one “Date this boy”. Whatever, I’m stubborn, so I went to a spiritual director absolutely crushed, and I told her, “I’m trying to discern my vocation as a religious sister, but there’s this boy. He is awesome, but he is distracting me from my prayer”. So, the spiritual director looked at me, smiled, and asked, “When you are with him, are you reminded of God’s wonder? His beauty? His might? His strength? Are you reminded that God is good?” I nodded, and she said, “Good, then being with this boy is a prayer. As long as he draws you closer to God, being with him is a prayer”.

So, if something draws you closer to God make it a prayer. You see a beautiful sunset? Thank God for it. Your wounds are overwhelming? Put them at the feet of the cross. You are scrolling through your phone? Repeat the name of Jesus. I’m not suggesting lowering prayer to something mundane. I’m saying that the more we cling to Jesus through our whole day the harder it is to pull you away from Him. You’re hungry? “Great, okay Jesus let’s go eat. Let me bless. God, you are beautiful and wonderful, oh look there’s that person I don’t like. In your name, Jesus, I bless her. Oh, man I had homework. Okay, I won’t stress I will do what I can. I offer up this next hour of stress for those who need your mercy”. You see? Add Jesus in your thoughts, then your thoughts become prayers, and then, when you can, kneel down and really, really pray. Then, maybe, to quote the rock (not St. Peter but the other one) we can “be the type of [people] that when [our] feet touch the ground in the morning the devil will say oh no! They are up”.

So, I don’t usually do this, but I want to end with a prayer.

Dear God, I know I am weak. I know I have failed. I know I lack faith, but Jesus, today I want to put in Your hands my weakness, my failures, my lack of faith. Help me to know You in all the moments of my life. Help me to see You in others, so I may love them like I want to love You and help them like I want to help You and serve them like I want to serve You. Jesus, I ask that You allow me to recognize temptation before it comes. I ask that you allow me to discern what will tear me away from You, so I may not only avoid it, but call your name to defeat it. Jesus, I trust you. Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I put my whole life, my whole heart, my whole self at the foot of Your Cross. Help me to remember death, so by Your mercy, Your grace, and your help I may strive for life eternal with you.

Amen

So, there you go. That’s what I’ve learned. I ask that you keep me in your prayers, so I don’t fall so often, and if I do may it not take me so long to get up. You are in my prayers too! God bless!!