Famous artists depict Satan as a winged demon with goat horns and cloven hooves. If the devil really presented temptation to us in this obvious guise, we would easily be able to recognise and resist it. Sadly that is not the case. We tend to think of temptation as something that will lead us into a life of crime or immorality, but temptation is simply anything that threatens to take us away from God. Temptation does not come with all the easily recognisable trappings of Satan. More often or not temptation comes as an attractive choice. Satan presents for us easy ways out of our problems. Satan dresses up poor decisions as sensible options. Worse, the devil will help us to justify our poor decision making until we reach a point where we really cannot tell right from wrong.
Many of us fail to recognise temptation, and the reason we fail is because we don’t really know who we are or what we’re about. It’s surprising that we can get so far on in years without being about to answer simple questions like “What are you doing for God?” “How would you like to be remembered?” The reason we struggle with questions like these is because as human beings we are governed hugely by self interest. Self interest is essential for survival and it’s in all of us, but as Christians we have to put self interest on a back burner and put in the time and effort into defining who we really would like to be. Once we have achieved this, then the devil’s temptations are suddenly crystal clear. After all, we can’t be tempted away from our path in life if we’ve no idea what our path in life is. If we have no plan, we are hardly worth the devil’s attention.
When we choose to give up something this Lent, perhaps it should be something that reflects the path we have chosen and the temptation we are trying to transcend. If we decide to give up red wine for instance, with the intention of dropping a couple of dress sizes, God won’t be hugely impressed and the devil won’t be remotely interested. If we give up wine because we have identified that it is stopping us from doing some important work of God’s making, our Lenten journey will take on a life changing significance. Jesus gives us an important clue; “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” When we make our daily choices ask, “Is this about me…. or is it about God?