in many situations, touches our feelings and thoughts, and step-by-step draws
us toward Himself.
The Lord uses angels to effect this: “The angels attentively and continually
observe what the evil spirits and genii with a person are intending and
attempting; and insofar as the person suffers it, they bend evils into goods,
or to goods, or toward goods.” (Arcana Coelestia 5980; see also ibid. 2796:2,
4307, 5992; Spiritual Experiences 585, 1088, 2194, 2994; Apocalypse Explained
1174:2, 3)
Curiously, we are told angels “bend him to good by means of his own
cupidities, and to truth by means of the fallacies of the senses.” (Arcana
Coelestia 50:2; see also ibid. 6472:2; Spiritual Experiences 2012, 2196; Apocalypse
Explained 151:2)
Related to this is a description of how the evil spirits try to lead a person
toward a hellish goal, but the Lord moderates the person and turns him or her
to a good end so that the intention of the evil spirits is diminished to being
non-existent. (Spiritual Experiences 2918; see also ibid. 4122)
Another example of this is ambition. (Divine Providence 183:4; Spiritual
Experiences 2796) It begins as a self-centered focus of striving to achieve for
self. But, as a person is doing the work, the Lord is in the background quietly
and slowly shifting the focus from self to the use itself that is being