Intrusive Thoughts & Wrestling With The Devil Within

This week was pretty chill; nothing super crazy or exciting happened. I started a new course from Hillsdale College that covers Dante’s Divine Comedy, a book I have yet to read but have often heard of. Yesterday, I celebrated one year of employment at my new company. Looking back, I am still grateful for how God moved me from my previous job of ten years into this new adventure! Even now, as I think back to why I was so discontent with my previous job, I think much of it was that there was no longer anything left for me to work toward. I had plateaued, and there were no new challenges left for me. I am grateful for that company and all I learned during my time with them, but it was ultimately time for me to move on.

Ideas From The Devil?

I was driving to work this week; it was early in the morning, and ahead of me was someone on their motorcycle. Suddenly, entirely unbidden, a thought passed through my mind of how easily I could swerve and cause this individual to wreck. Even as the thought passed through my mind, I could not help but wonder, “Where did that idea come from?” I would never do such a thing, yet this thought all the same had existed in my mind for a moment. From this thought comes today’s post. This idea of having wicked and evil thoughts is called “Intrusive thoughts” by many today. In ages past, someone might have said that it was a thought planted in their mind by the devil. There are stories that I have heard where someone did do something terrible, and the person's excuse would be, “The devil made me do it.” Others might say something like, “I couldn’t help myself” or “I couldn’t stop myself.” These are the ideas I want to ponder today.

This is something I don’t think most people would say today, as much of our modern world no longer seems to believe in a devil. I remember when I was younger, watching the news one day and there was a news story of someone who had murdered a family member and when asked why they did it they said “the devil made me do it.” Today, I think many would say that this person was mentally ill, and as a whole, I would have to agree that anyone who is capable of doing such a thing would be considered mentally ill. But I also want to consider this idea of “intrusive thoughts.” I have heard many people talk about this idea of having a thought that they know is wrong. I don’t think these ideas are always as bad as running someone off the road. I do think, however, that when that thought passes through our minds it often is a moment that causes many to pause and wonder why the heck such an idea would pass through our minds.

If you were to ask someone today whether they think human beings are naturally good or evil, many would answer that they believe we are good rather than evil. Yet the more time you spend asking this question the more likely you are to come to the uncomfortable truth that we are a creature naturally bent toward evil and not good. We are a creature from childhood prone to selfishness. Often the first words of a child are “mine.” Children do not have to be taught how to be selfish or throw a fit when they don’t get their way. So, too, we as human adults naturally want to do things are are wrong, and these ideas often will enter our minds. For the Christian, there is a clear understanding that we are a being fallen and broken, and these thoughts and ideas must be taken captive. The wicked things a child is capable of doing are far less severe. So, the prudent parent will quickly begin teaching their child to understand right and wrong, rewarding the child when they do good and punishing them when they do wrong. Yet, as we get older, our capacity for evil deeds greatly expands. I think that for many, this is something an uncomfortable reality. Yet the truth of it can not be escaped. This reality means that often, the vile things we think, say, and do can not be laid at the devil’s feet. We can not blame the devil for these things, and we must instead look in the mirror and realize our own capacity for evil. The worst part is that God has written upon our hearts a moral intuition, yet we often deny and suppress this intuition so that our wicked desires might be fulfilled, and so we are left without excuse for the wicked things we do.

We today are just as prone to sin as Adam and Eve were that day in the garden. I think often, in our hubris, we think that if we had been in paradise, we would not have broken the law of God. We think we would have denied the temptations of the serpent, but if we are honest with ourselves we will see we do today the same things reported at the moment of the fall.

Genesis 3: 12-13 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

From the beginning, we have been a creature that has blamed others for our wickedness and evil deeds. Adam in the garden not only throws his wife under the bus and blames her, but truthfully, he blames God himself, saying, “The women YOU put here with me” made me do it. So, too, when Eve is held to account, she too does not take responsibility for what she has done, and instead, she blames the devil. Here, we see that blaming the devil for the choices we “freely” choose to make is not a new phenomenon. We are ultimately the only ones responsible for the things we do; we attempt to point out and blame others, but in the end, the things we do can only be laid at our own feet.

There is for many tension in this idea, for they will claim that it is the fault of their parents. They will blame their childhood; they will blame the circumstances within which they were raised as the reason why they have become what they have. Yet here, too, we are not excused. Many do fall into the generational vices of their family, and yet many others will choose to break free of those chains and instead abide by the moral law written upon their hearts. They will choose to rise above, and they will instead do the hard thing, which we should have done at the moment of the fall, and they will look to God and say, “Lord, I did this wicked thing, and I ask that you forgive me for what I have done” and in that moment God will forgive us! Here, then, God above gracious and just will give us a road to redemption. This road often means we will suffer the consequences of our deeds, just as Adam and Eve did. My experience is that we often believe that if we ask for forgiveness, we will somehow also be free of the consequences of our choices, but rarely is that true. We will then most often have to begin the work of taking responsibility for what we have done. Redemption is the hard road of taking responsibility for what we have done and then watching as God then begins working through that and making something good of our wicked deeds.

Abdication of the will

Part two of this idea is that when blaming others no longer works; we often fall prey to the abdication of our free will. My observation is that Christians are often far more prone to this than other groups, or perhaps I am simply outing myself here. I think oftentimes what will happen is we will, after much turmoil, admit that it was, in fact, our fault that X bad things occurred. So then, our next step is to go to God and ask Him to take charge. Realizing our proclivity to fail and make mistakes, we will ask God to do it on our behalf. We go to God seeking to excuse ourselves again, only this time, we do it through the guise of “submission” and “surrender.” This allows us to feel as though we are somehow living out a holy mission by doing NOTHING. We say things like, “Oh, I’m waiting on God.” And I do believe there are seasons of waiting and surrender. But I don’t think we are ever called into a season of “nothing.” If God has put within us a holy desire. Then, we are called to action; we are called to pursue that desire. I do think it looks different for all of us, but my view is that often, we are tempted to abdicate the thing given to us by God and that which separates us from the other creatures of creation, and that is our “will.” Our ability to choose and make choices. I think often we will become paralyzed by the mistakes of our past, and so in an attempt to avoid further error or to avoid pain, we become paralyzed into inaction.

This is, in my view, the temptation of the Christian. We fear making mistakes, and so, in a way, we seek to give up that thing that makes us human. We seek to give up the gift most precious to the human creature, that thing by which we are capable of love, for it is only by continuing to allow us free will that we can truly love. Love can not exist without it if God had instead made us a creature without our will. Serving Him, we would not be an act of love. We would be nothing more than a machine doing that which it was programmed to do. Love, in the end, is a thing which must be chosen freely; everything else is slavery.

Yet here, we, in many ways, crave and desire slavery. We often would rather be a slave without freedom of choice and the risk of pain and error, because if we are a slave, then we can not be held to account for the circumstances of our lives. We are instead merely a victim of the tragedies of life. I doubt many would confess it in these terms, but at its heart, this is our desire in my view. Our condition since the moment of the fall is to have a proclivity to abdicate the gifts of God. A chief of these gifts is to have the freedom of choice, the gift of our “will.” We would often rather submit ourselves to our base animalistic instincts. As a result of the fall we are often inclined to attempt reform ourselves in the image creation, rather than retain the image of our creator!

Romans 1: 18-23 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness; 19 because that which is known of God is manifest in them; for God manifested it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse: 21 because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.

I was reminded of the verses above, as I am reminded once more than there is nothing new under the sun. We continue today to attempt to exchange the image of God in which we were made and instead seek to make ourselves like that of the animals rutting about seeking to indulge our every passion and desire, making ourselves subject to them. In doing this we abdicate our will.