The following story is told by John Chrysopoulou, an architect from Alexandroupoli:
I’m married to Evanthia Siontopoulou, and we have three children. A few years ago when my son Christos was three and a half years old, he was watching his mother burn incense in the home. He followed her around the whole house with a wooden rattle which looked like a censer, while she censed [the house], repeating, “Lord have mercy.”
One day, while playing his censing game as he usually did, he neglected to “burn” incense in the corner of the living room where the TV was. My wife noticed this and asked why he didn’t cense the whole living room.
Christos replied, quite naturally, that the stranger sitting on the TV would not allow him to burn incense there.
“But what stranger?” my wife asked.
“Him, dear mother, who sits on the TV, don’t you see [him]?“
Christos saw, with the pure eyes of his soul the devil on the TV, who inhibited even Christos’ make-believe incense.
https://lessonsfromamonastery.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/the-stranger-sitting-on-the-television/
Many and various are the demons' plots against humans. However, the help God provides to humans is incomparably greater. Indeed! If God did not defend us with His divine protection, the entire human race would have ceased to exist a long time ago due to the demons' onslaughts.
Truly! When have the demons ever allowed an opportunity to pass without creating temptations for man? When did they ever pause preparing traps for human beings or planning calamities for us?
Of course, the devil is not evil by nature, but he chose to incline toward wickedness. The Creator had appointed him to rule over the air, as St. Paul,
the beholder of heavenly mysteries revealed to us:
“According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience”(Eph. 2:2).
However, when he desired to rise above his
appointed position and when he subsequently
lost his honorary distinction and was displaced from his throne on account of his high-minded arrogance, he turned his malice toward human beings, in order to manifest his vengefulness toward the Creator. Since he was unable to strike back at God directly, he devised a different plan of attack: he decided to instruct God's creations to revolt against Him. Thus, as soon as the first man was created in the image of the Creator, the devil advised him to oppose God:
“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will become gods, knowing good and evil”(Gen. 3:5).
In following, when the human race began to multiply, he imparted thoughts of idolatry to man,
who became so darkened that he began to worship the creation instead of the Creator.
However, the demons were not content with deceiving humans in this way or even with receiving worship from them. They proceeded to harm and forcefully take up residence within
people.
Even so, God did not leave his creature helpless. He ceaselessly used various methods to heal man, and ultimately set in motion His wise plan of
Dispensation in Christ to trigger the downfall
of the demons.
This is clearly seen in the Gospel, where Christ censures the oppression of the demons and makes manifest God’s help to people.
“And when He stepped out on the land, there met Him a certain man from the city who had demons
for a long time. And he wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house, but in the tombs”(Lk. 8:27).
This is the hostility the demons have toward humans. They desire to destroy everyone, but
they are deeply distressed since they cannot harm
everyone.
http://www.stnektariosmonastery.org/
