Knowing My Enemy & Equipping for Battle

The Christian life is a battle and I’m lately learning the importance of knowing one’s enemy.

I’ve felt a under attack over the past several months. It feels that every corner I turn, Satan lurks waiting to hiss doubt and selfishness into my ear. Coming most often in the forms of resentment, suspicion, and feelings of failure, temptations rise quietly and subtly like toxic smoke. A negative thought here or there seems innocuous; but before long my soul is blind to reason and it takes so much effort to untangle the knots my hyped-up emotions have tied, to absolve my innocent husband from wrongs he never committed, and to regard my children as sweet souls entrusted to me. You’re a failure and a fake, I hear Someone say, and I buy it. It’s when I’m at my lowest, deepest sense of despair that I can finally identify my accuser, because only a being terrible to the core would tell me such things.

Satan, whom Christ called the Father of Lies, and oh what a liar he is; he is subtle and deceitful, infiltrating the blessings God has given me to make me feel drained from my life rather than fulfilled by it. I love my life! It’s been wonderful and grace-filled and every aspect of it is joy for me when my soul is on the straight and narrow; but it’s when I veer that the fog settles in and I’m not so sure if my blessings are blessings anymore.

When I write, Satan tells me I have no creativity, that I can be of help to no one, that my hopes of writing a book and becoming a national journalist are ridiculous, and that other writers within the same genre are competition to be one-upped instead of fellows to be admired.

Attacking my vocation, he tells me that I’m not attractive to Andrew anymore, and that being emotional or neglecting chores around the house will make me unlovable; he tempts me to spend more than what we earn and be a poor steward of our income. He tempts me to resent Andrew and guard myself from him instead of investing myself in our marriage.

As a mother, he tells me my sons are impish interruptions to my plan for the day or my life, and that having little ones so close together will send me into a downward spiral of insanity. Children are anchors, didn’t you know that? They won’t fulfill my vocation, they’ll stop me from living life.

Lies.

Lies. Lies. Lies. Having fallen into all of these temptations, I can see so clearly now that none of them are true, but I didn’t come to this realization on my own. God in His mercy lead me to insights from others – one homily, one blog post, conversations with several friends; insights that shed light on him who was called Lucifer, “Light Bearer.”

Among all offerings from the aforementioned sources, two facts stand out:

1.) Satan hates me and is consumed by his hatred for souls and God. 

2.) Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18); the Devil and his tricks and snares can’t touch me and won’t be anything to fear as long as I cling to Christ.  

The fact is, I’ve made myself vulnerable. I’ve fallen out of the habit of personal prayer and resuming recently feels a bit awkward. I don’t know where to begin, what to pray exactly, which book of the Bible to read for meditation or should I go with the readings of the saints? Restarting is a constant in the Christian life and the beginning of any rising efforts often feels feeble or even hopeless; but that waning motivation is not of God.

But Christ is my rock. And I need Him for everything whether I recognize it or not.

Admittedly, in realizing that I the lies I believed are from the Devil, I was terrified. It’s not a comforting thought that the most wicked creature ever personally desires the demise of my soul – so I was scared to the point of spiritual paralysis. I wanted to ignore God throughout the day out of fear of further attack. Oh me of little faith…

It wasn’t until a friend messaged me telling me she wasn’t doing well that I found the antidote to my own struggles. Unable to articulate exactly what was wrong, this girl seemed beyond distraught. She seemed confused and upset. Her soul is blessed with an innocent sweetness I’ve not seen in many people, and it occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t a battle of hormones or stress, but one of a more spiritual nature; so I wrote her a Rx to say the St. Michael Prayer.

Of course, I thought. Why didn’t I think of this before? 

I used to pray the St. Michael Prayer all the time as a kid; when I was a teacher, I prayed it with my students at the start of class. Here I was falling into the lies of the Devil, and there was a rope to save me the whole time. I pray it at the moment any falsehood tries to lure my soul from God. I pray it for my writing, my marriage, my motherhood – knowing that the overwhelming and loathsome label of FAILURE is not God speaking to my soul.

The St. Michael Prayer is helpful and miraculous as well as the very names of Jesus and Mary. There have been countless times I have called Mary to my aid and been soothed at once in spite of my panic. But more powerful than any other form of protection is frequenting the sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion. With these, you will be completely shielded. Satan cannot consume in darkness the soul aflame with the Light of Christ. 

It’s so easy to write off Satan; to ignore him or think that stuff like this is sensationalized. I agree that there can be too much fascination (so often used as a trap and distraction from God), but if we want to fight with spiritual prowess and confidence, then it’s essential to know the Enemy and cling to Christ who already defeated him. There is no merit or gain to believing what the Father of Lies uses to taunt me and condemn me; and in the all-merciful Lord and His glorious saints, there is all the protection I could ever desire.

 

St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.