67. Temptation

‘The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist’ - The Usual Suspects

Sometimes it’s easy to believe we are bad people and not deserving of love.

The thoughts, desires, and temptations that frequent our consciousness can constantly lead to mental struggle- a lack of belief in ourselves.

But these thoughts do not depict who we are as people, nor our worth.

Intellectual Evagrius Ponticus, went to Egypt and 4AD and wrote the most sophisticated demonology in all of ancient Christianity.

Why is this relevant you ask? Well, his findings resulted in summing up what he believed demonic fights were made up of- a greek term called ‘Logismoi’. In English, this translates to ‘internal narratives’, or, ‘internal belief structures’.

These thoughts in our heads are not often of our own choosing but part of the devil taking control; we aren’t in a neutral spiritual world but rather there is a fight going on- and in this case, it is for our minds.

Temptation is a real thing.

“Our fight with the devil is first and foremost a fight to take back control of our minds from their captivity to lies and liberate them with the weapon of truth” - John Mark Comer

So we have the devil trying to infiltrate our mind with thoughts- but why would he attack like that?

Because then we can blame ourselves.

Temptation through an internal narrative is so powerful as it changes our perspective, leading to self-loathing and ultimately pushing us away from the things that help us.

When we believe we aren’t good enough; we don’t try and we remain in a helpless state often ignoring external truths that could help us.

Like the Usual Suspects quote suggests- the more we rationalise these negative thoughts as something we deserve and things that are ‘natural’ the less ability we have to recognise the enemy at work and put things in place to stop the perpetuating Logismoi.

People, the world, and the devil are all fighting for our attention- aiming to control these inner beliefs we have so we have to discern how we navigate that- the hard thing is it is so easy to think we are in the right and all is well but slowly we are sacrificing ourselves.

“What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul” - Matthew 16:26

Like in a battle we can’t be in reaction but rather we must go on the attack and prevent temptation.

This only comes from a place of honesty, authenticity and vulnerability in how we feel in response to temptation- and this will be different for everyone. The hard thing with it all is that we are led to believe that temptation is alright, or even good. So the narrative in our head can justify almost anything without discernment.

Look around you to media, TV, and culture as a whole. It has curated a belief that it is okay to be satisfied with doing nothing. The notion that overindulgence is healthy, that laziness is justifiable, that hedonism is the chief ranking of life’s worth.

Yet, ask anyone of great ‘success’ if they are satisfied?

The temptation when you lack fellowship and accountability is to chase everything you think you need- but as we know already, the devil works through our thoughts. We must be questioning why.

We want money- why? We want success- why? We want fame- why?

With these external validations and fleeting temptations being at the forefront of our minds, it is actually the devil speaking into us saying we are inadequate as ourselves. This resultingly feeds us the lie that we can do something to make us worth anything- it’s the reason why self-help books are so popular- we want to be good enough.

Yet, the reality is our hearts cannot be satisfied with these things. They are not enough, nor never will be enough.

“The fact that our heart yearns for something Earth can’t supply is proof that Heaven must be our home” - CS Lewis

The calling is to be in the world, but not of the world. To recognise the enemy at work. To control our minds.

We must recognise the temptation, it’s working in our narrative, and the beliefs we think are good when in actual fact they are not.

Active participation against the enemy resides in continual discernment with others. Conversing over why we believe/ do things, being honest in what we fall short in, and strengthening our beliefs in truth daily- create an armour that prevents uncertainty on where to stand, and build a defence against temptation.

In ‘The Art of War’, one of the military advisors, Sun Tzu, gave these words of wisdom:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Know your temptations and the enemy of the devil and you’ll be able to best prepare for any war.

66. Trust

is at the crux of most relationships, business connections, and life issues.

Looking at two scenarios, which one sounds more sustainable:

1. Trusting others to move you forward in life, however flawed their actions or attempts may be.

2. Being self-reliant and forcing yourself to carry the load of everything.

“If you don’t trust the people around you to do good work, you’ve got some work to do”- Chris Baca

Patrick Lencioni is an author most known for his research and understanding of team dynamics. He came up with a helpful way to understand how dysfunctions of teams appear with the triangle above. He proposed that a lack of any of these 5 qualities can lead to disruption. Interestingly he said trust is the foundation by which all is built- without it no progress can be made.

This is often hard in both professional and personal situations as requires a level of vulnerability to share challenges, emotions, and hardship.

We can believe this to be negative as trust can be taken advantage of; but looking to the two scenarios, what is the other option? We become closed off, forced to bare the weight of it all. Nobody wants this.

It starts with taking a chance on someone; who knows you might just achieve some amazing results together.

65. Be, Do, Have

Today I was tired.

My motivation was sapped, but then I remembered something…

I may be tired of waking up early.

I may be tired of running.

I may be tired of being trying to be disciplined.

But I still knew I could prevail because of my identity.

Failure comes from focussing on the activity too much without first recognising who you want to be.

When you embody the identity of your activity your lifestyle changes for you to become the person to fulfill that and the goals become inevitable realities.

We must be who we want to identify as before we do the work. We must do work before we have the results.

Breaking the loop breaks your identity- loss of identity is powerful- and loss aversion is a strong motivation.

So I got on the trainers and went for that run. I didn’t want to lose my identity.

Do you want to lose yours?