The Four D’s of the Devil’s Tactics
The four D’s come from the Desert Fathers. I’m going to jam on a bunch of Carmelite themes around Isiah for examples.
Division
The faith of Israel was hijacked by the king, who was in cahoots with Jezebel. “How long will you go on limping/wavering — if the Lord is God, follow him!” The Hebrew word pasach (פָּסַח) appears both here (I Kings 18:21) and in reference to the Passover (Exodus 12:23) — it means to skip or to pass over, as well as to waver.
Two reasons we often limp are worldly distractions and lack of consistency in prayer. Israel didn’t reject one of the other, but tried to serve them both. God calls for an exclusive relationship — you have to be all in.
Division can refer to both division within a community, but also within marriage and within ourselves. What’s inside will spill outside.
In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, diversity; in all things, charity.
— St. AugustineThis attribution is disputed; others attribute the quote to Marco Antonio de Dominis.
REST: Recognize — feel it deeper. Embrace Jesus, present in our pain. Shift to an attitude of sacrifice. Trust.
Discouragement
Discouragement is that feeling of being stuck. Elijah watched the cloud end the drought — a type of Mary. The queen is coming after him to kill him, after he killed her/Baal’s prophets, and he’s feeling down. The angel tells him, “Arise and eat, else the journey will be too much for you” — a type of the Eucharist — and on the strength of this food, he walked for 40 days.
Deception
Deception works on the level of the intellect, trying to get us to settle, to limp, to fail — to deny the value of the sacrifice and that to deny the blessing it has in it — to approach a live permeated throughout by prayer as if it were a “nice thing for old ladies”.
God came to Elijah in the cave as “a voice of fine silence”.
A prayer before beginning work: God, help me to be attentive to You as You are to me. I accept all. I offer all to You.
“Pain and anxiety narrow our vision, while gratitude expands it.”
Diversion
Diversion is when we get just a few degrees off course. When your defenses are down, that’s when the big temptations come. Satan wants to keep us from doing the most good, by diverting us towards doing something lesser. If he can’t make us sin, he’ll settle for preventing us from doing good.
Q&A
Praying an Our Father for a prayer of deliverance. To keep thinking about God throughout the day, try things like statues and holy cards to remind you, turn to God when you take those tiny breaks for necessary things, and before starting some work, offer it as a prayer.
How can I accept that God loves more, without falling into the trap of trying to “earn” His love? Get in touch with being alone with God. His love is like the sunshine. Look up “I Thirst”, a meditation by St. Mother Theresa.
How do you love someone who hurt you? From a distance.