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Once upon a time in college, an atheist friend of mine decided to disprove the existence of God. He devised a simple experiment: Setting a glassful of water on a table’s edge, he explained that if God were real, he would value my friend’s soul enough to prove himself by knocking over the glass or miraculously emptying it. Minutes went by and the glass went unmoved and unemptied. My friend was in triumph. You see, clearly God did not exist. I then drank the glass of water and said that God used me as his instrument. Apparently, that didn’t count.

He was, of course, putting God to the test, much like the devil in our Gospel readings for this first Sunday of Lent. My friend was not malicious like Satan, but rather just confused. Like many of us, he forgot the age-old axiom about God and science experiments: In carefully controlled laboratory conditions, God does whatever he wants. God is sovereign. But imagine if God were on the hook to prove himself as existing and omnipotent each and every time someone doubted or set up such an experiment? What a sad God that would be — more of a harried butler than a benevolent king.

Such is precisely the point of the devil’s tempting of Jesus, a battle that takes place not only in the wilderness but also in each and every one of our hearts. There, Christ has been abiding and fasting, hungry for our faith, thirsting for our love. The devil plies the same tricks on Christ as on us, the classic threefold temptation: lust of the flesh (gluttony and sensuality); lust of the eyes (wealth, status, and power); and pride of life (pride and the sense that we don’t need God). Each temptation tries to shift God into a posture of inferiority and servility: God must prove himself to our satisfaction; we get to be the judge and bystander. If he passes our tests, then we might allow him to be a part of our life.

In contrast, Christ’s 40-day fast and temptation in the desert shows that he has been a part of our life all along. He completely entered our humanity in solidarity with us. He suffers with us, feels our hunger and thirst and exhaustion, and even endures the indignity of temptation with us. During it all, he responds with faith and obedience to God, showing us the way forward.

And Christ does more than merely show us the way. As mentioned above, by our baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist, Christ dwells within us and fights within. Our hearts might be a wilderness at times, but Jesus enters even there with his grace. Rather than put God to the test as a bystander, Christ’s temptation encourages us to trust and lean on him as a friend in our corner.

His strength becomes our strength. Sure, Satan might use the same tricks against us as against Jesus, but the good news is that Christ has seen those tricks before, and like a good boxing coach teaches us to step inside the devil’s pattern and disrupt it to deliver a knockout punch or two.

Lent is that series of spiritual countermoves and knockout punches. Prayer blocks pride of life and counters with reliance on and love of God. Fasting destroys lust of the flesh. Almsgiving makes mincemeat of lust of the eyes. And if we’re bold enough to imitate Christ in relying on God’s word constantly in Scripture, we too can send the devil packing when he starts a temptation scuffle.

Rather than test God, we learn in Lent to trust and fight with him, and in doing so find his strength made perfect even in our weakness. We are the Body of Christ. We really can change for the better and can overcome temptation and grow in faith and virtue, if only we’re willing to forsake waiting for God to act as a bystander and step into the ring with him. In doing so, we become immediately certain of his existence, no tests needed. We know he’s already there, waiting to try his splendor out in us.