“Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves…I do not think you will have much difficulty in keeping the patient in the dark. The fact that ‘devils’ are predominately comic figures in the modern imagination will help you.
If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that (it is an old textbook method of confusing them) he therefore cannot believe in you.”
— Screwtape, a senior demon writing to his nephew Wormwood in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters
This year I’ve been more aware of my thoughts and especially how those thoughts lead to feelings. Last year I read The Screwtape Letters last year and this line haunted me… because so much of what derails us isn’t what we hear, it’s what we fail to notice. It was a hard read — I had to read every chapter twice to fully “get it” — but it opened my eyes to how the Accuser can and does place thoughts in my mind to derail me.
Years ago, I read that the devil’s greatest weapon is disguising his voice as your own. I used to believe that all my feelings and thoughts were valid. They’re mine, so they must be true, right? But while they are all mine, not every thought needs to be validated — and certainly not all of them are true.
Why I Call Him the Accuser
Last year I stopped calling him the “devil” because that can desensitize us to his real purpose. He is an accuser. He is a liar. The Hebrew word used in the Bible for the devil means adversary or accuser, often meaning arch-enemy. In Aramaic, Satan has the root meaning of adversary and is also used to denote an accuser.
Calling him just “devil” felt too simple to me. It loses the weight of who he is and the destruction he wants to cause. So I started calling him the Accuser. Each time I say it, I remember who he really is and what his purposes are.
I also wanted to be able to recognize his voice and the voices of his spirits. One verse in the New Testament startled me:
2 Corinthians 11:14–15 — “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It’s not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness.”
That verse told me two things:
- The Accuser pretends to be good but is actually evil and deceptive.
- The Accuser has servants who also pretend to be good but are evil.
So how do we know the difference? We need to know biblical truth, but we also need discernment.
Eyes That See the Unseen
Webster’s defines discernment as “the quality of being able to comprehend what is obscure; an act of perceiving something; a power to see what is not evident to the average mind.”
For me, this takes work — constant work. I think thousands of thoughts all day long. There are no days off for discernment.
Here’s how it plays out: I have a thought. If it’s not a positive one, I try to consciously ask myself, Is this thought helping me or hurting me? Is this thought helping my relationships or hurting them? Those two questions help me get to the root of it.
Back in 2013, a dear friend sent me a comparison of what God’s voice does versus what the Accuser’s voice does. I’ve kept it in my phone ever since. It’s been such a guide.
If I want to be discerning and recognize the Accuser’s voice, I need to stop and allow even just a few seconds to pause. I ask: Is this thought helping or hurting? What am I feeling with this thought?
Is This Helping or Hurting?
So this year I’ve been working on discerning my own thoughts. If a thought isn’t helpful or hurts my relationships, I let it go. I don’t give it power. I don’t give it a voice. I stop it where it starts.
This is NOT easy. For me, it means letting a lot of offenses go. If my husband says or does something that frustrates me, my thoughts could quickly be: He said that because I’m not doing it right. Or He isn’t being considerate of my feelings. Or He was mean. Or He doesn’t care about me.
None of those perfectly normal thoughts are helpful to me, and they are certainly not helpful to my marriage.
That doesn’t mean something may not need to be discussed or that my feelings can’t be hurt for a moment. But if I give voice to those thoughts, they’ll take our marriage down a destructive path — full of anger, frustrations, and past hurts. Those thoughts position my husband against me instead of at my side.
So I ask: Who benefits from these thoughts — God or the Accuser?
When My Thoughts Attack My Relationships
When I started asking that, I realized how much selfishness was inside me. Most of my thoughts were… wait for it… all about ME!
And not every thought was even true. My husband loves me. He isn’t the kind of man who would intentionally say something mean or hurtful. Some people do — my dad certainly did — but my husband doesn’t. So when (not if, but when) I have the thought that he doesn’t care about me, I stop and say: That’s not true. I have years of proof in our marriage that he does love me. He’s not perfect and neither am I, but he loves me and I love him. Again, who benefits from those thoughts — God or the Accuser?
I Have a Choice — So Do You
This work is not easy. It takes self-awareness and humility, which are just plain hard. But discernment can be trained. Taking thoughts captive can be trained. I just had to want to grow up in this and not let my emotions rule me. God gave me the ability to make choices, and the only thing I can control in this life is me — my thoughts and my actions.
As I’ve practiced this, my relationships have improved. I still have negative thoughts, and sometimes they get the better of me. But I don’t give up. I get right back to questioning my thoughts.
The thoughts I allow determine my actions. If they’re helpful, my actions have a better chance of being good and improving my relationships. But if they’re hurtful, I have the power to do real damage to myself, to others, and especially to the ones I care about most.
But I have a choice. And so do you.