“Be not afraid:
I go before you always.
Come, follow me
And I will give you rest.”1
I was having tea with a friend yesterday. It is a unique situation. I very briefly sponsored her, but she decided that she does not want to stay in AA. We have periodically kept in touch through text, and she felt that she was ready to meet. As I grow in my spiritual gifts, I do not approach her as someone who I need to fix, but rather as someone I can simply walk alongside, encouraging gently through my own example of recovery.
She seemed to be responsive to this newer dynamic, and after I said I needed to be on my way, she asked me about my spirituality/religion, which was interesting, because we didn’t talk about anything of the sort in the hour that we had been chatting. I think she was particularly curious, because she asked me to pray for her the other day, and I said yes, and prepared to pray in private, but realized it would be more effective if I texted her my prayer instead. It’s not a coincidence that we only are starting to talk about religion and spirituality now, after having been in contact the past half year. I have radically shifted in my approach to God this new year, and it reached a pinnacle in April. Even though it is still a gentle and almost hidden approach, she caught on.
She disclosed that she is afraid of Satan, but as she draws back toward her Jewish faith, she was able to get some comfort from a rabbi, who told her something that I have been wrestling with since our conversation. In the Jewish tradition, the teaching of Satan and his role is quite different from that in Christianity. While there are some similarities, such as Satan only having whatever power God wills, as well as having some of the same language, like accuser or adversary, his purpose is drastically different in the two traditions.
In Judaism, Satan is considered an agent of God, someone who is designed to test our loyalty to God, and when we overcome our test or temptation, thereby proving our devotion, Satan actually rejoices, because we then grow even stronger in our relationship with God. In Christianity, however, Satan is someone who is deeply hateful of the human race, and who wants to utterly destroy it. The contrast is glaring.
I have been musing over her new understanding of Satan, analyzing the similarities and differences, and reflecting on how I can offer a Christian response should this come up again. I truly understand the appeal of her new perspective. I too used to be afraid of Satan and his angels (demons), so I cannot fault her for jumping aboard this teaching that offers a nice solution. But what I recognize today, through my commitment to my recovery, which through my radical shift has now been transformed even higher into resurrection, is that Satan, though frightening in theory, has no real world power2.
Satan is not God, and yet we so often forget that. He is not all-knowing, all-present, or all-powerful. He cannot read our minds, or know the truest form of our hearts. What he can do, is what anyone of us can do - observe. That’s it.
Satan is an opportunist. He finds the chinks in our armour, and exploits it. However once we understand this, we learn to slow down in moments of weakness, and to invoke the Holy Spirit to overcome what Satan might otherwise succeed in3.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I was raised in a Christian household, but by the time I was born, my family was no longer actively involved in the church. And while my older brother was baptized into the United Church, I was not. I became deeply interested in spirituality and religion in my twenties, and found what I thought would be my resting place in kundalini yoga. I was working to become a master, and being baptized into the Sikh tradition4 seemed like the next logical step.
But God had other plans. He knew me in my mother’s womb5, and wasn’t going to let me go. The calling to Jesus became more and more audible, and when I randomly received a poster with a Bible verse6 in the mail from an organization called Seed Sowers, it landed on fertile ground, and I was utterly transformed.
The passage was John 3.16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This would have been at least 20 years ago, and I still have it in a sheet protector, hanging on my wall.
I needed to be baptized, as Jesus was7. After some failed attempts to be inspired and welcomed at a Protestant church, I asked my Polish friend at the time to take me to a Catholic church. I needed support, as I was intimidated by Catholicism. I also did not have a positive outlook of it, but I was ready to open my mind, as God kept calling me to his flock. There was a church down the street from me that had many long steps at the front, where the guests at weddings would line up for photos, and I would marvel at the fanfare of it all. We went, and the priest gave a homily that sung to my heart.
Father George talked about grace over works, which was a novel idea for my exhausted yogi mind. I couldn’t believe that I just had to be, that God could love me as I am, and meet me where I am. I approached Fr. George after the service, and he welcomed me warmly, and invited me back. Then his associate priest, Fr. Joe, had me enrolled into the RCIA program8 within a couple of months after that.
I wasn’t expecting to be so welcomed into the Catholic Church. Someone joked that it was because they were losing numbers. My pride didn’t like that comment. My trauma was agitated thinking that I could only be accepted somewhere because their standards were lowering. Today I understand that God wants all of us, it doesn’t matter who we are or where we come from. Community in a church is a beautiful gift to us, we who are all equal in the eyes of a loving Father.
Around this time of searching for a church, I was bottoming out in my alcoholism and drug use, burning the candle at both ends with a rigorous and unforgiving yoga practice. This combination led to a psychotic break. I then attempted to engage in spiritual warfare as I understood it at that time. The New World Order, Satanic panic, and fundamentalist evangelism became my focus. These things made my mental illness make sense, but in fact all it did was exasperate it.
Medical intervention healed the psychosis, and I made my first attempt at sobriety in 2010 with a CAMH outpatient program. As the years went on and I achieved long-term sobriety through eventually committing to AA, I began to really turn my life around. I met my now husband, went back to school, and got a great job at an art and design school, at the helm of culture. I entirely stopped thinking about Satan and spiritual warfare; the life I once had, soaked in mental illness and fear, was but a distant memory.
I remained close to my faith though. In fact, my faith matured9. When I closed my Facebook account in the fall of 2022, where I spent most of my time in religious and esoteric groups, I found myself leaning even more heavily on the Church for insight. I developed a new relationship with the Mass, even realizing that all occult practices are simply copying the original supper of the lamb10. Though Fr. George had semi-retired to a new church and I didn’t get to see him as much, my new priest, who has a gift of community-building, encouraged me to get active, and I became a lector (reader).
My confidence grew as I saw I could balance my religion with my very secular career. Then, one fateful day last month, one of the students who I help support inquired about the MAID program11. This drastically changed my trajectory. I used ChatGBT to help me understand this government program, and how I can fortify myself despite this very distressing space that I needed to now navigate.
I had a new spiritual experience, where I fully recommitted to God. I got clear on my spiritual gift(s), and once again denounced all of the New Age and occult practices and references that had slowly seeped their way back into my life since my most recent attempt to live only for Christ. I desire now only to be laser-focused in God’s will for me, as I discern the true from the false. The natural conclusion of my epiphany is to (re)engage in spiritual warfare, but it is night and day from what it was when I was in my mental illness.
In Catholicism, everything leads back to the Mass, and so when I armour up today, it is not rooted in fear, but in love. I consecrate myself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and focus on prayer, studying the saints and meditating on their lives, and on regularly receiving the sacraments, such as the Eucharist and Reconciliation. Having the strength of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, which I was blessed to enter into with my now husband last weekend, has been a wonderful gift from God that I am incredibly grateful for.
Satan cannot hurt me. Now that I understand his limitations, instead of placing him on a twisted pedestal, as though he is powerful enough to be God’s opposite (which he by no means is), I see so clearly our role on Earth. Truly understanding our duty to be stewards of nature and of the animals, insects, fish, birds, and all other life12, our responsibility to our neighbours13, and to our right worship of God14, has given me new purpose. I am a real agent of God, here to encourage others and offer hope. And I don’t let Satan take what is rightfully mine anymore.
James 4.7
John 16.33
Now dethroned Yogi Bhajan who brought KY to the West in the late 1960’s started a movement that eventually led to the full adherence of religious doctrine.
Jeremiah 1.5
Matthew 3.13-5
1 Corinthians 3.1-4
Genesis 2.15
Matthew 22.37-40
Romans 12.2