Defend Me In Battle Lord

There are several aspects of my faith, that for the longest time I never understood and struggle with, and to be honest, am still trying to understand and perhaps will always struggle with. And I’ve learned that that’s OK. It keeps me always striving for a better understanding.

There is one aspect however, that in the last several years, has become quite clear to me. I’ve spent countless hours thinking, wondering, pondering and praying about something most people might not even consider. Perhaps because it’s not something that people with a deep-rooted faith don't like to think about. I’m talking about the evil one…Satan. Some of us don’t even like to mention the name because in doing so, it’s a way of making him more real. Well guess what? He is real. And whether we want to acknowledge it or not, he’s hard at work in this world. That much I know and everyone needs to know that because there’s no denying it. I do have to say that just the mention of his name literally sends shivers down my spine.

So, here’s what has become quite clear to me in the last few years. It’s not the fact that he just never stops trying to destroy people’s faith, but it’s how he does it. Many people think and believe that when things go wrong, or bad things happen in their lives, or they suffer some kind of catastrophic event in their lives, that Satan is the one behind it. Things like car accidents, loss of jobs, being the victim of a crime, Cancer and so on and so on, are all things that when they happen, people immediately point their fingers at the evil one for causing it. The truth is that it’s simply not true.

And this is what I want to make perfectly clear. First of all, we have to understand that Satan does not have the power to cause those kinds of things to happen to us. He does not have for example, the power to make someone sick, or make someone fall and get injured, or to cause a car to crash. That isn’t something that is within his power.

What Satan does is something far worse. He gets inside our thoughts. In order to understand how he does this, you need to understand who and what he is. Consider this, we all have Guardian Angels, right? And those Angels are there to guide us and direct us every single day. We should be learning and understanding how to stay attuned to them and their guidance. Our Guardian Angels are what will help us to hopefully get to Heaven. So let’s ask ourselves, who is Satan then? Well, he is an Angel as well, although he is a fallen Angel. So just as our Guardian Angels are trying to direct us toward the good, he too is trying to direct us and guide us, except not in a good way. That is exactly how he does his work. But, he takes it a step further by watching and waiting. What is he waiting for? He’s waiting for moment of doubt, a moment of uncertainty, hesitation, reservation, misgiving, distrust, disbelief, suspicion, skepticism, and most of all, a moment of weakness. He’s looking for a chink in our armor, a crack in our defenses. And the moment he sees it, he goes to work.

Let’s look at it another way. When two professional football teams are going to play against each other, there are coaches on the team who’s job it is to take a look at the opposing team and expose, or look for, the other teams weaknesses in order to win the game. THAT is what Satan is doing all the time with you and I. The moment he sees (or hears) us have even the slightest doubt that our God is there for us, he moves in and simply whispers in our ears, “Now that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along” or ”Do you really think God cares about your problems?” or even worse, “You’re not good enough for God to even bother with”. He is the biggest liar in the history of the world (Genesis 3). So in that regard, he may in fact take the catastrophes in our lives and twist our emotions and our thoughts and convince us that, yes, somehow, those things are our fault. DON’T BELIEVE IT!

Here’s the most important thing about all of this that I want to be completely clear about. Satan will come after you when you are weak, NOT when you are strong. The moments in our lives when we are focusing our attention on God and being mindful of our faith, when we put on our armor, Satan has no choice but to walk on by because when we stand with God, we know that we are invincible, right?

How many times have you had a “faith crisis?” A time when you felt distance from God, a time when you were feeling so low, you actually doubted that God cares about you and what’s going on with you. I know I have. I clearly remember a day when things were going so badly that I actually looked at my wife with tears in my eyes and said to her, “I think God forgot about us”. Looking back to that moment, those were not my words. That was merely an idea that Satan so easily put inside my head because I let him in. I turned my attention away from God and made it easy for Satan to convince me for a moment that God no longer cared about me. It’s those times when we feel so defeated, that we can’t even pray, that we need turn to others, and ask them to pray for us. And if we can’t find anyone to pray for us, ask our Guardian Angel, or better yet, Mother Mary. She’s always waiting for us to ask her for help.

A friend of mine recently heard someone say that she feels that Satan is attacking us because our prayers are increasing and because we are relying on Jesus. Remember, that’s not how he operates. I remember someone once telling me a while back that Satan never follows us into church because he simply because he cannot touch us while we are there.

It’s easy to think that when things go wrong in life, that Satan is the one behind it. Don’t give him that much credit folks, because he simply doesn’t have that kind of power. No Angel, Heavenly or fallen, has the power to make you do ANYTHING. The only power he has is to destroy lives through his vicious lies. If you want to look at the damage he does, just take a look at the person who no longer speaks to his parents, or the person who hates his neighbor, or someone who can’t tolerate someone from another nationality, or a couple who is getting a divorce, or the person who doesn’t believe their good enough, or even a woman who’s convinced that it’s OK to have that abortion. Somewhere along the line, Satan moved in and convinced all those people that each one of those things is acceptable. We cannot let him win. There’s a great new song by MercyMe called “WeWin” which talks about this very thing. Listen to that song when you have a few minutes. In the meantime, here are the lyrics to the chorus:

This goes out to anyone down for the count, It's not over
Don't give up, don't throw in the towel. Just remember who you belong to
Let me remind you how this ends
We win, woah, we win

Those examples I mentioned earlier, accidents, unemployment, family illness…that’s just life. And you know what? Sometimes life just stinks and those kinds of things will always happen no matter what, even if we have the strongest faith in the world. Life is a battle folks. So put on your armor and get ready to fight.

St. Michael the Archangel, pray for us. Mother Mary, pray for us. Jesus, pray for us. Amen.