The Devil and Discouragement

One of the greatest weapons of the devil is discouragement. He wants to discourage us from actions that will lead to our own transformation, the transformation of those around us and the whole world. We need to resist him firmly, refuse to give into his lies and do what God is inspiring within us! 1) The devil wants to discourage us from daily meditation. He knows that if we persevere in daily meditation, we will, over time, go from good, to better, to great, and become a saint. If we persevere in meditation, nothing can stop us. Therefore, the devil does all that he can to stop us and discourage us from prayer by telling us that “we’re wasting our time, that our prayer isn’t accomplishing anything, and that we have too many more pressing responsibilities. Or, God loves you unconditionally and he won’t mind if you skip meditation today.” Fight this attack of the devil by persevering in daily meditation.  2) The devil wants to discourage us from speaking to others about Jesus. The devil knows the power of the gospel and what will happen if we put people in contact with Jesus.  So he has to do everything in his power to keep us from talking to others about Jesus. The lie that he spreads to discourage us is this, “you should have faith, but keep it to yourself. Your faith is personal and needs to be private. If you tell others about your faith then your trying to force it on them. You wouldn’t want to be one of those annoying bible thumpers, would you? So just lead by good example and people will come to Jesus.” This is a lie. Our relationship with Jesus is personal, but it was never meant to be private. In fact, Jesus commanded the apostles and all his followers to make it public. Every time Jesus says proclaim or preach the gospel, the phrase in the original language means to “Make it public.” Don’t give into the lie, when God gives the opportunity to speak about Him to others – do it. 3) The devil wants to discourage us from leaving our comfort zone so that we are never able to reach our fullest potential. This could be regarding starting friendships or in taking a step forward in your profession that you feel could help you, the company, and the clients. The devil has engrained in us the fear of failure. “Why would you risk the failure and the humiliation that follows, you’re good where you are right now. Why risk that?” The devil doesn’t want us to have the chance to ever start up new initiatives that entail risks, possibly a business venture, possibly starting or expanding a family, or possibly even inviting people to your home to pray the rosary with you.  4) The devil wants to discourage us from ending sinful habits and creating virtuous ones. He sows the lie that you can’t live without the sinful habit. The habits become so tied to who we are that we let the devil tell us that these habits are our identity, and losing that habit is losing a part of ourselves. We may fall into the vice of overworking, whether it be in the workplace or at home. Instead of living a balanced life, the devil lies to us and makes us fear losing our identity of a “good work ethic,” convincing us to overwork ourselves. The devil tricks us into tying our entirely identity in moderate things such as work. 5) The devil wants to discourage us from loving unconditionally. He does so by telling us, “You’re always the one that gives, they never give anything in return. If you keep loving unconditionally then you will never get what they owe you.” Jesus doesn’t want us to enable sinful manipulation, but the devil skews this and tries to prevent the power of unconditional love. Saint John of the Cross says, “Where there is no love, put love and you will find love."