Even though we cannot see God, he tries to influence us to do what is right because he is love and wants only good things for us.
There is someone else we cannot see who tries to influence us to do what is wrong. He is Satan. He does not love us and wants to get us into trouble and be unhappy.
When Satan tries to influence us to do wrong, that is called temptation. Jesus was tempted too, but he resisted Satan and lived a perfect life.
It was not easy to resist Satan because he makes sin look like lots of fun and tries to get us to think God just doesn't want us to have any fun.
One day, just before Jesus started teaching people how to live in God's kingdom, he went out into the desert to think and work out a plan.
He was out there for 40 days which is over a month. Did you ever complain of being hungry? Jesus never had anything to eat during that whole 40 days. Of course he became very hungry.
One day Satan put the thought in Jesus' mind that he could just perform a miracle for himself and turn some stones into bread.
But Jesus resisted that temptation because God did not give him the power to perform miracles to help himself. His miracles would always be to help other people believe he was the son of God. So he went on being hungry.
Do you have a talent that you can help people with, but sometimes you're tempted to use it to help yourself instead? Try to use your talent to help others as much as possible.
On another day Satan put into his mind the idea that he could go to the Temple and climb to the highest part of the roof and jump off. God would surely save him by sending his angels. Then everyone who saw it would believe he was the son of God when God didn't let him die.
But that would be tempting God and purposely putting himself in harm's way just to get God to give him special attention. Jesus decided that, too, would be wrong.
Do you sometimes do something dangerous like going out into a busy road because you think the drivers won't hit you? It is hard for drivers to see you, and if they hit you, they would feel bad the rest of their life.
Finally, Satan put the thought in Jesus' mind that he could just force people to believe he was the son of God and that way he could rule everyone in the world.
But God gave people free will; that is, they can decide for themselves whether they want to follow Jesus. Jesus does not force people to love and follow him. So he turned Satan's idea down.
Jesus loves you very much. But he will not force you to love him back. He will love you anyway, even though he will be sad you do not love him.
When Jesus resisted the bad thoughts Satan put in his mind, Satan left him alone for awhile. If you think about both the bad and good that could come from your actions and decide not to do the bad, Satan won't tempt you as much either. You will be happy and Jesus will be happy.