For much of my life, I thought the battle was somewhere outside of me.
I looked for something to blame.
Circumstances.
Other people.
My past.
My weaknesses.
My temptations.
The world.
And, sometimes, the devil.
It is easy to imagine a monster in the closet.
Something out there that is responsible for the darkness inside of us.
Something we can point toward when we lose our temper, make a destructive decision, hold a grudge, give in to temptation, or repeat a behavior we already know is hurting us.
The devil made me do it.
But what if that isn’t the question God wants me asking?
What if the more important question is:
What did I give power to?
Stop Looking in the Closet
I am not trying to settle the theological question of exactly who or what the devil is.
Jesus spoke about Satan as a real adversary. He spoke about temptation, deception, evil, and the forces that oppose God.
But Jesus also continually brought the conversation back to the human heart.
He talked about what comes out of us.
He talked about our thoughts.
Our motives.
Our desires.
Our choices.
Our willingness to forgive.
Our willingness to love.
Our willingness to surrender.
Jesus didn’t teach me to spend my life looking for something outside myself to blame.
He taught me to look within.
That is uncomfortable.
Because once I stop blaming the monster in the closet, I have to look at the person standing in front of the mirror.
Me.
And that is where transformation begins.
The Inclination Within
There is something within me that doesn’t always want what is best for me.
Call it the flesh.
Call it ego.
Call it the lower self.
Call it temptation.
Call it the reactive mind.
Call it whatever you want.
The name isn’t nearly as important as recognizing its presence.
There is a part of me that wants the easy way.
It wants revenge when I have been hurt.
It wants comfort when discipline is required.
It wants recognition when humility is required.
It wants to be right more than it wants to understand.
It wants to judge someone else rather than examine itself.
It wants to blame rather than take responsibility.
And if I continually feed that part of myself, it becomes stronger.
That doesn’t mean I am evil.
It means I am human.
And being human means I have something within me that must be brought under the authority of something greater than my immediate desires.
For me, that something greater is God.
What We Give Attention To Grows
One of the most practical spiritual lessons I have learned is that attention is powerful.
What I continually think about affects how I feel.
How I feel influences how I behave.
What I repeatedly do becomes a pattern.
And patterns eventually become a life.
So perhaps the battle isn’t always about destroying some monster.
Perhaps the battle is about what I am feeding.
If I continually feed anger, anger becomes easier.
If I continually feed resentment, resentment becomes familiar.
If I continually feed fear, fear becomes my default response.
If I continually feed pride, humility becomes harder.
If I continually feed lust, comparison, jealousy, bitterness, or self-pity, those things begin to feel like they are simply who I am.
But the opposite is also true.
Feed gratitude, and gratitude becomes easier.
Feed forgiveness, and forgiveness becomes easier.
Feed compassion, and compassion becomes easier.
Feed discipline, and discipline becomes easier.
Feed truth, and eventually I become less comfortable with my own lies.
Feed God, and I begin to recognize God more readily.
This is why Jesus said:
“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”
He didn’t tell me to spend my life seeking the devil.
He told me to seek God.
Overcome Evil With Good
Paul wrote something that has always struck me:
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
What a different way of thinking.
We often believe we defeat darkness by staring at it.
We study it.
We talk about it.
We fight it.
We give it our attention.
And sometimes, without realizing it, we make the very thing we are trying to escape the center of our lives.
But Jesus continually redirects our attention.
Love your enemy.
Forgive.
Pray.
Give.
Serve.
Tell the truth.
Turn the other cheek.
Do unto others.
Seek the Kingdom.
Love God.
Love your neighbor.
Become the person God is calling you to become.
In other words:
Don’t let what is wrong with the world determine what becomes wrong within you.
Someone else’s anger doesn’t require me to become angry.
Someone else’s dishonesty doesn’t require me to become dishonest.
Someone else’s cruelty doesn’t require me to become cruel.
Someone else’s rejection doesn’t require me to reject myself.
Someone else’s darkness doesn’t have to become my darkness.
That is responsibility.
The Devil Can’t Become My Excuse
Maybe there is a spiritual adversary.
Maybe temptation is more mysterious than I understand.
Maybe there are realities in the spiritual world that I cannot see.
I don’t need to have every answer to take responsibility for what I can see.
I can see my choices.
I can see my reactions.
I can see my habits.
I can see the damage I cause when I allow anger to control me.
I can see what happens when I refuse to forgive.
I can see what happens when I continually choose comfort over discipline.
And therefore, I cannot use the devil as an excuse for what I am unwilling to take responsibility for.
Even if temptation comes from somewhere beyond me, the response is still mine.
That is where my freedom lives.
I may not control the temptation.
I may not control what someone else does.
I may not control what happened yesterday.
But I can ask:
What will I do with what is happening inside me right now?
That is a question I can answer.
The Monster Is Not the Point
Perhaps we have spent too much time worrying about the monster in the closet.
Maybe the real work is learning to walk into the closet, turn on the light, and discover what is actually there.
Fear.
Pain.
Anger.
Shame.
Pride.
Grief.
Insecurity.
Unforgiveness.
Old beliefs.
Old wounds.
Old habits.
And beneath all of them, perhaps, is something much more important:
a human being who is capable of choosing differently.
That is where I find hope.
I don’t have to spend the rest of my life fighting some invisible monster.
I have to become increasingly aware of what is happening inside me.
I have to recognize the inclination.
I have to notice the thought before it becomes the action.
I have to notice the anger before it becomes the words.
I have to notice the temptation before it becomes the behavior.
I have to notice the resentment before it becomes bitterness.
And then I have to choose.
Not perfectly.
Not every time.
But more often.
And then more often again.
That is transformation.
The Battle Is Won in the Next Choice
I used to think changing my life required changing everything.
Now I believe transformation happens one choice at a time.
The next thought.
The next word.
The next reaction.
The next meal.
The next decision.
The next apology.
The next act of discipline.
The next opportunity to forgive.
The next opportunity to remain silent instead of reacting.
The next opportunity to choose love instead of anger.
The next opportunity to surrender my will to God’s.
That is where the spiritual life becomes practical.
I don’t have to conquer my entire life today.
I have to conquer this moment.
And then the next one.
Maybe that is what it means to take up my cross.
Not to become perfect overnight, but to continually surrender the part of me that wants to live according to its own impulses and allow God to create something new within me.
Look in the Mirror
So when I am tempted to say, “The devil is attacking me,” perhaps I should pause.
Maybe.
But I should also ask:
What is happening inside me?
What am I believing?
What am I feeding?
What am I allowing?
What am I avoiding?
What am I blaming?
What choice is mine to make right now?
Because regardless of what exists outside of me, there is something within me that I am responsible for.
And that responsibility is not a burden.
It is freedom.
If everything is someone else’s fault, then I am powerless.
But if I have responsibility, I have agency.
I can change.
I can repent.
I can forgive.
I can begin again.
I can surrender.
I can choose differently.
I can turn toward God.
The monster in the closet may always be there.
But I don’t have to keep staring at the closet.
I can turn around.
I can walk toward the light.
And perhaps that is the real battle:
not defeating the darkness, but becoming so devoted to the light that I stop giving the darkness my power.
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