Enter God into Your Lives
Enter God into Your Lives… 1
We spoke in the previous two times about the phrase: “Deliver us from the wiles of the adversary, and nullify all his traps set for us…” which came in the Absolution of Vespers Prayer… and today we try to continue our meditation on it as well…
In reality, the wiles of the devil never end, and he continually targets the human person, and does not fight him in one way only, but the ways are many. If one method does not work with a person, the devil tries another method with him… and if the “left-hand blow” does not work, he tries with him the “right-hand blow,” and if the pleasure of the world does not work, he tries extremism in spiritual life… and so on… The important thing is that the devil always goes about seeking tricks by which he may make the human person perish, for he is like a roaring lion, wanting to swallow someone…
The wars of the devil with the great saints are not like his wars with the people of the world, for he fights the people of the world perhaps with thought or with lust… and in the deserts he fights the saints with apparitions, and he appears visibly in various forms and shapes… in the form of an angel… because he wants to deceive…!
And sometimes he fights with fear, and with dreams, and with false visions… or with sounds… The devil resorts to many deceptive methods, such that the Apostle Paul said the devil is able to appear in the form of an angel of light to deceive the human person… for his wiles never end, and he has long experience in fighting the human person…
He has spent thousands of years fighting the human race… and has tried wars with the saints, and has studied the human soul with deep study, such that the psychologists and spiritual scholars do not know the human soul at all as the devil knows it… He knows the weaknesses of the human person and the method of making him fall, just as he knows the “types” of people!
Before the strength of the devil and his wiles, we do not stand in pride, but we pray and say to God: “Deliver us from the wiles of the adversary and nullify all his traps set for us”!
This matter alerts us to the importance of prayer in the war against the demons, and the necessity of bringing God with us into our spiritual battle, that He may work with us…
We often fail because we fight alone and rely on our intelligence, our experience, and our strength… and we rely on people… and rarely do we rely on God…!
The Lord Christ says: “Until now you have asked nothing; ask, that you may receive, and your joy may be full…!” So ask for God, and do not stand alone in your battle with the devil.
In the sin of Adam and Eve… we notice that when the temptation came, we never hear that neither Adam nor Eve prayed or resorted to God…!
Once, one of the saints was praying and doing his handiwork, when the devil came and destroyed his work. The saint stayed silent… then he returned and worked again, and the devil destroyed it again… This repeated many times until the saint grew angry and cried to God saying: “O Lord, does it please You that the devil troubles me like this…” And immediately the voice of God came to him saying: “If you had asked Me from the beginning… you would not have grown weary…!”
And so it is with us and God — we do not resort to Him until all ways are closed before us, matters become complicated, and there is no solution… like the sick person who does not go to the doctor until his case worsens… We are like this with God — we wait until we are completely exhausted, and then we say: “O Lord…!” Why then do we not say “O Lord” from the beginning of the road, from the beginning of the temptation, from the beginning of the distress??
Notice — my brothers — that the one praying in Vespers Prayer says: “Deliver us from the wiles of the adversary, and nullify all his traps…” He prays for these “wiles” before they come, and for the “traps” before he sees them… It is a “preventive prayer”… and this is what we say in the Morning Prayer, and the Thanksgiving Prayer, and in every prayer… we ask God to keep far from us every act of the devil… We do not wait until we fall and then pray… but we pray that we may not fall…!!
When Goliath the mighty one stood threatening the entire army of Saul, they all feared, and no one resorted to God. But David came and said that the battle is the Lord’s… for he brought God into the battlefield, and he said to Goliath: “I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts…” So let us train ourselves to bring God into our lives…
Believe me, if we do that… if we bring God into our lives, what happens to us would never happen… God wants us to call upon Him in our lives, our distresses, our spiritual battles… and the traps set for us…
This matter also gives us an idea about faith in the power of God and the work of God… for He does not allow the rod of the wicked to rest upon the lot of the righteous… and He is stronger, and He fights for us… and the battle is the Lord’s… So contemplate in this verse that says: “The battle is the Lord’s, and God is able to win with few or with many.”
David blesses the Lord and says: “Who teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight.” And I want now to ask each one of you: What is the role that God plays in your life… in your problems and your battles…? And do you call upon God to intervene in every small and great matter and in every distress? If you do that, you will not grow weary…!
The Old Testament tells us that King Hezekiah, when threatened by the army of King Sennacherib — which numbered 186,000 soldiers… and he sent him a letter of threat… Hezekiah took the letter and placed it on the altar of God and said: “O Lord, You see…” and called upon God to intervene… and indeed God sent His angel who struck the army of Sennacherib!
Likewise David always brought God into the battle. He says: “I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord is with me!” He felt that God intervenes in his life and in his battles. He says: “Our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers… the snare is broken and we have escaped…!!”
And when we bring God into our lives, we feel the friendship of God and His companionship… and the presence of God in your life makes you feel that He is the helper, the supporter, the rescuer, the savior, and through Him you are able to succeed…!
If we examine — for example — the history of the “Arian problem,” we will find that Arius was able to corrupt the Church. He contacted Emperor Constantine, and contacted the palace, and an order was issued to Saint Athanasius to accept Arius… But Athanasius prayed… and God struck Arius, and his bowels were poured out… and God delivered Athanasius, and the Church was saved!
Likewise — many examples in which we glimpse the hand of God intervening to solve problems; we glimpse it intervening in trials and battles. And for this reason the psalmist says: “The voice of the Lord divides the flames of fire and shakes the wilderness”!
God works… but what is required is that we call upon Him to work with us. And the difference between us and the saints is that we work by ourselves… and leave heaven watching… but the saints used to ask God to work… and they themselves would watch the work of God!!
“Deliver us from the wiles of the adversary…!”
The word “deliver us” is said by the one who is not able to save himself… And we also cannot save ourselves; so we cry, and fear, and despair, and give the devil a chance to triumph over us… while it would have been possible — instead of that — to call upon God to work, and to cry to Him saying: “…Deliver us”!
We — my brothers — have not yet realized the importance of prayer and earnest pleading in our lives… If you — my brother — are defeated before a sin, know that you are failing in the work of prayer, and if you had strong prayer, you would have been victorious… just as St. Isaac says: “Whoever thinks there is another path to repentance — other than prayer — is deceived by the devil!!”
We have not yet realized the value of prayer… The men of God stand firm before the devil and the problems because they always pray with earnestness and fervor and say: “Deliver us from the wiles of the adversary and nullify all his traps set for us…!!”
They know that the devil fights them, and they perceive the devil’s strength, but they fight with the full armor of God, and with it they are able to defeat the devil!
The holy Church, when she places this prayer — “Deliver us from the wiles of the adversary and nullify all his traps set for us…” — she places before us a spiritual path for us to walk in, which is the path of prayer…!
God cannot hear the cry of the poor and not respond, for He says: “Because of the oppression of the poor and the sighing of the needy, now I will arise, says the Lord; I will set him in safety!” And therefore we pray and say: “Arise, O Lord God, arise, O Lord, and let all Your enemies be scattered…”
We must continually resort to this weapon, not only against the wiles of the devil, but also for the sake of our weaknesses that accept these wiles!
Saint Antony the Great used to pour himself before God with humility and say to Him: “Deliver me, O Lord, from those who think I am something, while I am weaker than to fight the least of them.”
This subject — beloved brothers — makes us constantly think of leaning on the mighty arm of God which worked strength with David, who says: “They surrounded me like bees around the honeycomb; they blazed like fire among thorns; but in the name of the Lord I destroyed them.” And he also says: “The right hand of the Lord has exalted me; the right hand of the Lord has wrought strength. I shall not die, but live, and tell of the works of the Lord”!!
Have you tried the right hand of the Lord in your life??
Know that you have tried your mind, your strength, your intelligence, and spiritual guides… and know that you have tried the power of will and determination… but have you tried the right hand of the Lord in your life?… and can you say like David: “The right hand of the Lord has wrought strength”?
Have you tried how God splits a path for you in the sea?
Have you tried “the salvation of the Lord”… God works salvation in the midst of His people… Have you tried it??
Always pray to God… call upon Him… and say continually: Deliver us from the wiles of the adversary, and nullify all his traps set for us!!
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An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, published in Watani Newspaper on 20-8-1972.
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