We Should Never Dialogue With The Enemy

One day, the devil appeared to three monks and said to them: If I gave you the power to change something in the past, what would you change?

The first monk, with great passion, answered: “I would prevent you from causing Adam and Eve to fall into sin, so that mankind would not be separated from God.”

The second monk, a man full of mercy, said to him: “I would keep you from turning away from God and condemning yourself forever.”

The third monk was the simplest and instead of answering the tempter, he knelt down, made the Sign of the Cross and prayed, saying, “Lord, deliver me from the temptation of what could have been and wasn’t.”

The demon, yelling loud and trembling in pain, be gone.

The other two monks, surprised, said to him, “Brother, why did you react like that?” ”

He answered them:

“First: We should NEVER dialogue with the enemy.

Second: NOBODY in the world has the power to change the past.

Third: Satan’s INTEREST was not to prove our virtue, but to hold us in the past, so that we neglect the present, the time God gives us His grace and we can cooperate with it to do His will.”

My beautiful Tewahedo Orthodox sister, the one thing that holds us back and stops us from being happy is, “What could have been and wasn’t.” The past is in God’s hands and the future is in His plans. But today is filled with His love. Live today loving God with all your heart and the people He has given you.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4:7 KJV