When I was growing up, comedian Flip Wilson used to do a skit about a person claiming the devil made them do whatever they were accused of. As a young man I laughed at Flip, he had a good presentation and could always make me smile.
Now that I’m older, and trying to get closer to God, I think, probably too deeply, about what makes me do the unacceptable or negative things I do. I’m not talking about real big things like murder- for the record I have not killed anyone.
Coming from the assumption that most of you believe in the devil, and the devil is an entity whose sole purpose is to disrupt our lives and lead us away from God, I submit the following.
We are all tempted to do big things wrong, at least the thought pops up. Things like stealing, battering someone, cheating on our taxes. Hopefully we say no to the temptation and, eventually, it goes away. For me, the big things are easier to resist than smaller failings mostly because of the consequences.
If someone cuts me off in traffic my immediate reaction is, “I should teach this guy a lesson!” I am tempted to pull up next to him and flip him off! If he stops, all the better, I’ll beat him right there in the street! I find this easy to resist because I can rationalize why I shouldn’t in a plus-minus sort of way. Possible jail time verses being upset for a minute.
If I show my displeasure with his actions by a hand gesture the possible outcomes include:
He drives away and I get some small amount of satisfaction, he returns the gesture, and the situation escalates, there could be any number of possibilities up to a “full-fledged” road rage incident resulting in serious injury or worse.
Another example of a “temptation” might be a case where a server makes a serious mistake on a dinner bill asking me to pay much less than I should. The immediate thought is, “Ah, it’s my lucky day!” Now comes the question, do I “do the right thing” and point out the mistake? Or do I rationalize that I’ve probably been overcharged at times in restaurants, and this is my payback?
I must admit that, in situations like the road rage, my finger has shot up, almost reflexively at times. In my older years I have learned to stop short of a car chase that might lead to dire results; in my younger years, not so much.
With the dinner example I have the same feeling. I would never pay the wrong bill to save a lot of money. I would have a little fight going on inside of me if I discovered a small mistake, especially if I have already left the restaurant.
In my opinion we are receiving constant temptations. Several years ago, I got in some trouble at work for being late twice in a year. It was generally an hour ride, but when the weather was bad the travel time could go up a lot.
After I got warned for being late, I found myself in bed, with the alarm ringing, and my thought was, “I should hit the snooze button, again!” I was on midnight shift and sleep was a precious commodity, but I knew I needed to get out of bed. A voice in my head I recognized as my own, was saying just 5 more minutes, then you’ll feel better.
I forced myself to get up and started wondering, could that have been the devil?
I was struggling to raise 7 kids and a suspension day would have been very hard on my budget. That wouldn’t have been a major sin; it wouldn’t have been a sin at all, but it sure would have been a problem if I showed up late again!
Many similar instances have occurred to me. I’m up late watching an old movie for the third time. I could easily go to bed, but I don’t. I have something planned for the next morning. Yet that voice in my head, that sounds like my own, is saying, “You can stay up, you’ll still get 5 hours sleep.”
So, my thought is, maybe the devil doesn’t just lead us into sin. Maybe the devil leads us into anything that will disrupt our lives enough to make us a little more vulnerable!
I find that, often, when I am trying to pray, that voice that impersonates my own, says, “Hey, shouldn’t I check my phone to see if I have any messages?” What’s going on downstairs? Do they have any coffee made? – Anything but continue praying!
There’s an old saying, “Pray harder when it gets harder to pray.” I try to follow that, but still have my successes and my failures!
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