The Preyer

Monday Devotional

“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

1 Peter 5:8

Previous generations of Christians may have paid too much attention to the devil, but our age tends to pay him too little heed.  The severe truth is that Satan hates your marriage and makes its destruction a nearly daily aim.

It is said that while Francis of Assisi prayed for his Order, “by divine revelation he saw the whole Place surrounded and besieged by devils, as by a great army.” Much to Francis’s satisfaction, the demons couldn’t find a place to enter, until one of the friars was stirred to anger and began to plot revenge on a brother.  “As a result, the gate of virtue being abandoned and the door of wickedness being open, he gave the devil a way to come in.”

Francis called for the offending brother and confronted him.  The brother confessed that he had, indeed, been making vengeful plans; he repented, and the gate to hell slammed shut.