The Diabolical Encounter

My fears, temptations, anxieties, come to me very much like an external force. I can hear the devil's voice whispering to me when I'm afraid, or when there is something I desperately want. The devil offers a hard and fast security. "Come to me", says satan, "and all will be safe, and secure, and you can seek out only what you want for yourself, and there will be no more need to take risks with what you want most. Bow to me and I'll take away all the things that make you afraid and make you vulnerable. Hate what you want to hate, love what you want to love, seek out your own goals and plans and work with me to vouchsafe your place in the world." The voice of the devil can be cruel and taunting, telling me how worthless I am and how impossible God's love is for me, or it can be sweet and seductive, offering me a life focused on what I want in the world and a place without suffering or vulnerability... and all ostensibly without any price at all.

That is one mistake the movies make. They always have the devil there offering all you want for your immortal soul. But in truth the devil makes no such claim. The devil offers what he offers without cost. It is an offer of all you ever wanted, without judgment and without consequence, and nothing is required in return.

God's voice is almost always different. God does not offer to take away those things that make you anxious, but offers instead to take away your anxieties in exchange for a life with Him. There is no guarantee of safety and security, but only the promise of a life of eternal value and virtue. Nothing comes without a cost. The cost is clear and seen with eyes wide open: the cost is the cross. "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’" (Luke 14:28-30). No, there is no denial of cost nor any promise of safety and security in the world. 

In a sense the devil's offer sounds very much like the voice of death, which I spoke of here: http://ljtsg.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-lies-half-truths-of-death_6.html

There is a detectible lie in the offer of life without cost. The only way that can truly be without cost is a way that lacks dynamism, struggle, or evolution, for all of these things are born of tension. The only life without tension is living death. It takes experience, reason, experience, and faith to be able to detect this lie. This is why it is not enough just to believe, but one must struggle to gain as much understanding as one can. For certainly the promise of safety and security is not one immediately associates with the diabolical.

We all have those things we'd like to use as material for 'deals' with God. "O God only vouchsafe this one thing in my life, and I'll believe in you and be faithful." "O God, I can give everything to you but this one thing, ask for all but it, and I'll believe and be faithful." Such prayers betray the true nature of God, of the God who is revealed and known in and through the Cross. They are at best idolatrous and at worst something more diabolical. We all do this, we all find ourselves at times serving the wrong side. 

The devil has learned enough about me to know that he can make life hardest through a direct attack. When at prayer, or meditation, the evil one comes to play his tricks. When I forget who I am, and am prone to lust pride, or anger, then he comes in his more subtler forms. In these times recognizing him robs him of his power, in the other my power comes from ignoring him, and focusing only on God. I turn to the Lord for who He truly is and not who and what I want him to be and I fall before the cross. That is my salvation, and my protection, not from the things of this world, not from the vicissitudes of life, but from the disease of my soul. Amen.