And how are we delivered from it?
“…And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil …” (Lord’s Prayer)
In my understanding the evil is not a person, neither it is outside of us. It is part of our consciousness; it seeks out and supplies proof for our beliefs that generate fear.
We tend to try to run away from the evil – the fear based consciousness – by different methods such as distracting ourselves by being very busy, controlling situations or others, not participating in life, etc. But we do not notice that it is all happening within ourselves. There is nowhere to run!
As we connect within we face the evil, as we do that, we can release it. As a result, it stops controlling and running us.
God delivers us from evil by US creating and maintaining a connection with the Divine Presence daily through prayer and meditation. Unity’s Five Principles remind us:
As we connect within and up, the grip of the fear, that we try to manage on our own, starts easing away.
So, by praying to be ‘delivered from evil’, we state that we are willing to build a relationship with the Divine Presence within. In deliverance, we can build a more peaceful and contented life together.
Example: I know someone with the fear of not having enough and of running out of resources e.g. money. This fear runs his life in a way that though he is well off, he fears using his resources in fear of running out of them. Often people with this particular fear greatly limit their life experiences by not ‘using the resources available to them’, they often strain their personal relationships, and hold back from life in fear of being ‘robbed’ or ‘manipulated’. It also prevents him from giving freely and abundantly from his resources in fear of not having enough left for him. He is petty much like Mr Scrooge! 🙂
Evil can show up in many different ways in our consciousness, but as we develop Faith in the invisible Divine Presence through connecting to It daily, we will find ourselves being delivered from Evil: it slowly dissipates into the nothingness.