God and the Devil...and stuff

So my 8 year old son and I had a pretty intense conversation the other day. He's got a lot of questions about God, always has. I have struggled alot with how to answer some of his questions. He tells me that he prays about stuff, sometimes literally crying to God to help him with things, and that God doesn't answer him. It's really hard to explain to an 8 year old that God really is hearing his prayers and He really does care, but that sometimes not answering our prayers actually IS answering our prayers. Confusing, yep. Even to me - I've been struggling with this myself. But, what if a "no" about one thing means a "yes" to something better for us? What if God is actually protecting us from something worse by not helping us with something else? So, I spent a few minutes trying to explain THAT to him - which was difficult and he still just doesn't understand why God can't simply make everything better for everyone, because hello, he's GOD.

Then I started talking about sin, and the devil and how God never wanted all these bad things to happen to people, but He gave us free will and He's kind of just letting us figure things out and wants very much for us to believe in and follow Him, but that He will not FORCE us to. In the beginning, Adam and Eve were tempted in the Garden of Eden by the devil, and ever since then, we have sinned. Even though God doesn't really like us to sin or want us to sin, He wants us to realize our need for Him to help us turn from it. He's also made a way for us to be forgiven of our sin through the ultimate holy sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. It seems the devil (a fallen Angel who wanted to BE God) has established a permanent residence on earth, and God is allowing him to tempt us, just as he allowed him to tempt Jesus. Here's the really cool part...WE are actually the ones that can give the devil his power or take it away. This is where my conversation with my son got really intense. Trying to explain the temptations of the devil, such as fear, doubt, greed, power...there are tons of ways that the devil tries to trip us up and get us to follow him instead of God. It is a constant, relentless pursuit of our hearts and our minds, our bodies and our souls. We are not perfect, and it is so easy to sin because it gives us what we think we want...pleasure, possessions, passion, money, health, etc...the list goes on and on. Everything that is temporal and temporary can be ours - for a price. I'm not saying that all things of this life are bad for us. But if we focus too much on those things and not enough on God...and if we don't rely on, pray to, believe in and follow God, these things can overtake us and thus, sin.

So these are concepts that really weren't taught in my Jewish upbringing. My mom always said we don't believe in the devil or hell. Funny thing though, if you read the Old Testament, there's a WHOLE lot of stuff about the devil. Just do a search for the word "evil" in your phone's Bible app. There's about a bazillion references to the "evil one" in the Old Testament. So, um, who's the evil one if it's not the devil? Through my reading, through my bible studies, through my conversations with my girlfriends, I think I have come to a fairly decent understanding of the devil. I also think I've come to a fairly decent understanding of God. I have struggled with the whole idea of the devil because of my upbringing, but I think I'm finally starting to get it. We are sinners, tempted by the devil to commit sins of the mind, body, heart and soul...and God had given us multiple opportunities, signs and wonders to try to get us to turn from sin (Old Testament). We didn't turn from sin, and we think since there's no way for us to be perfect, we can't turn from sin...so we either keep on sinning, ignoring God, or we really try to do things (good deeds, following religious laws, etc) to "impress" God and earn favor with Him. The heart is the key. If the mouth speaks words and the body does actions that give the illusion that we are following God, but we don't feel it in our hearts, then it's almost just as bad as blatantly sinning. The answer...Jesus. The single, holy, perfect sacrifice that God made on our behalf so that we could be forgiven our sins, past, present and future and that by following God..truly following God, we will WANT to do and speak the things of love that God is all about. The devil will always pursue us and will try to drive a wedge between us and our relationship with God. But we can take away his power. We have the Holy Spirit available to intervene, guide and protect us and keep us on a path away from sin and toward the light of God.

As for me, I'm trying to head towards the light. I don't do it perfectly, and I'm sure I never will...but I can feel the change in my heart and it's awesome and way better than anything I could get from the devil. It gives me a sense of peace, of gratitude and of love that I never imagined I could have. Even though I still haven't told my family about my faith, I'm still able to find some of that peace I was referring to in a post a few months back. I know that the guilt I have about Jesus vs. Judaism is the devil trying to get me to turn back. The reality is, it's not Jesus vs. Judaism, it's God vs. the devil.