The Ventriloquist

Have you ever had a conversation in your head where you told someone off? Recently, this happened to a friend while skiing in Colorado. This friend saw a man who had "done him dirty" in a business deal several years ago. Immediately the friend heard this scathing conversation in his head where he was telling this man off and letting him have it.

After a few minutes, however, the friend realized that this was not what he wanted to be doing with his time while on vacation. He was a Christian and truly believed in forgiving those who had wronged him. So why was he having this acrid conversation in his mind? He realized that it was the enemy using his own voice to get him started down the slippery slopes of hatred, bitterness, and anger.

After realizing that satan was the one picking the fight in his mind and not himself, this friend turned on the real perpetrator and told satan to get behind him! He then began to wash his mind with the cleansing water of the Word.

How many times have we been minding our own business when we see a former enemy and retaliatory conversation begins in our own voice, saying something judgemental or condemning about that person. Husbands might hear a thought in their own voice that causes them to condemn their wives. Wives hear words that remind them of painful events and begin to judge their husbands. Church members find themselves responding to themselves about one of their brothers or sisters in Christ that they are not happy with at the moment. Once the dart goes in, it must be extracted quickly or else.....or else we begin to succumb to its poison.

Satan is a ventriloquist. He throws his voice and makes it sound like us. He tempts us with thoughts that have just enough of the truth to cause us to believe the we are justified in our sin. Once we begin to dialogue "with ourselves", we then take on the duties of judge and jury.

But Satan is a ventriloquist. The voice you hear in your head that sounds like your own may not actually be your own. II Corinthians 10: 4,5 tells us to take captive every thought or feeling to Christ. Ask yourself, "Is this really who I am?" "Is this where my heart is to accuse and condemn others?" Or is my heart to love in the Name of Christ? Instead, is my heart's desire to pray for my enemies and to see God heal them?

St. Paul states that he was not unaware of the enemy's schemes. I believe this is one of his most effective schemes--to sound like us so that we begin a dialogue with ourselves whose purpose is to lead us away from the Kingdom instead of towards it.

Blessings,
Father Scott +