The Devil wants to lock you in fear and doubt

St. Michael and the Devil by Poulakis Theodoris (Wikimedia Commons).

Dear readers, how is your spiritual life? Is your heart at peace? Do you have a deep, abiding joy? Is your faith stronger than ever? Is your prayer flourishing?

Or is your heart full of anxiety? Do you fear for the future of your loved ones? Do you doubt God’s goodness? Are you on the brink of despair over your sins?

God does not want you to live a life of fear, doubt, or frustration. But the Devil does.

Lately I have felt like the Devil is trying to stop me from spreading St. Therese’s vision of trust and love. He doesn’t want people to surrender their lives to God. He knows what will follow–lives drastically changed.

Two weeks ago I held a Google+ Hangout with some special readers. We had technical problems, but that was normal. The technology was new to all of us, and I am not especially savvy at these things.

Then my book blog tour for Trusting God with St. Therese began. One blogger had difficulty posting my slide show. Okay, these things happen. But here’s how the rest of the tour went:

On four blogs my comments, and sometimes others’, disappeared.I had the wrong blog address for another day.One woman’s server was down the morning of her post. I was able to access it after a few hours, but readers told me they couldn’t do so until the next day.Another post went up very late.Only the last day’s post went up without a hitch.

Besides that, one fellow blogger had to bow out of the tour because of severe anxiety. Another had a fire on her farm after the tour. Thankfully, no one was hurt, although damage was serious. A third is facing a financial crisis. And last night a scheduled Skype interview for another blog had to be cancelled because we couldn’t get the recording apparatus to work.

Now, all these things could be coincidences. Some of them probably have nothing to do with my book. But it’s a few too many coincidences for me to think the Devil is not involved. It reminds me of when I wrote my recent post on Contemplative Homeschool.