I Venture Outdoors

My viral symptoms have decreased greatly. Last night I got all excited and texted the leader of my Saturday prayer group, saying I would be there if it didn’t rain. Then I got up this morning, and it was about 50 degrees out and drizzling. This never happens in Miami. We get rain. We get cold weather. We get them three months apart. We don’t get them on the same day.

I considered the prospect of having a relapse and having to lie around doing nothing for another week. Then I thought about the prospect of missing another prayer group. And I pictured myself all bundled up in the spacious, toasty cab of my giant diesel pickup. And I got my fat behind in the shower and got ready to leave.

Two missed meetings are enough. I can’t sit around for another week, missing out. I had to take the chance.

I could not believe the experience I had driving to Hallandale and back (that’s where we meet). On the way up, the truck’s exterior temperature gauge read 44. On the way down, it sunk to 41! Am I on Mars, or what? This can’t happen here.

I don’t care. It was well worth it. Seven of us met at Denny’s, and we talked about our goals and testimonies, and we all got on the same page. I needed that. If all you do is sit in a service for 90 minutes a week, you’re barely getting a toe in the water. The fight is on, all day, every day. Your enemy doesn’t take time off. You need all the support you can get.

Appropriately, we talked about warfare today. That’s what Christian life is. We often make that comparison, saying we are like soldiers and that our lives are like war. But that’s backward. Earthly soldiers are like Christians and angels and demons. Earthly war is like the battle in the heavens. The real war–the first war–is the one that started when Lucifer rebelled. All the wars we’ve seen here are pale imitations. We mistake the copies for the original. The spiritual war is more important. The stakes are higher. The injuries are greater. And only the spiritual war can cause death. Earthly war can kill your body, but spiritual war can cause the permanent destruction of your soul. That’s the only true death there is.

Our group leader, John, went back to something he discussed with us three weeks ago. He had a book called A Warrior Culture, by Donny Prater. In that book, Prater compares Satan to a lion, and he describes the way lions hunt. They carefully evaluate their prey so they can focus on the weakest individuals. They stalk the chosen victims patiently, for hours. They gang up. And the best defense is unity.

I thought that was interesting, because it reminded me of the things I’ve read about snipers. The greatest American sniper was a man named Carlos Hathcock, and I read his biography. I learned that snipers like to wound careless, exposed people from cover and then leave them alive, screaming in pain. Why? So their buddies will come out from concealment in order to save them. Then the sniper shoots them as well. That way, he can turn one wounded soldier into a pile of bodies.

This kind of thing is happening in my family. One person is more vulnerable than the others, so that person is the primary object of attack. The enemy is able to make that person behave in ways that are extremely exasperating. What happens when a family is attacked in this way? It can give rise to unforgiveness and anger in the other family members. It may make them question God, because it seems as if he’s not helping. It may make them drink or take drugs to relieve the stress. It makes it a challenge to focus on compassion. It’s Satan’s way of jimmying their temple doors open, so he can attack them with the same force. He wounds one of us, and he uses that person to snare the rest of us.

It’s an interesting strategy, and it’s not always easy to know what to do. Jesus himself told the disciples that if the people of a town would not listen to them, they were to shake that town’s dust off their shoes and leave. Paul abandoned a perverted Christian to the destruction of the flesh, that his suffering might turn him back to God. Longsuffering–even God’s–has limits. On the other hand, you have to be sure you show enough patience and understanding. It’s wrong to turn to harsh tactics too early. It can be self-righteous and judgmental.

I suppose the test is to examine your intentions and the likely outcome of your actions. If they pass inspection, you must be doing the right thing.

Christians aren’t the only ones who have to perform this balancing act. Over and over, both testaments refer simultaneously to mercy and judgment. God is just, and God is merciful. At the same time. He can do that without error or contradiction, but I know I make mistakes. I wish I were smart enough to know when I’m going too far in either direction.

Satan always has a trite response, if you screw up. If you’re too soft, you’re condemned as an enabler. If you’re too hard, you’re selfish and uncaring. Funny thing about Satan: unlike God, he’s pretty predictable. He’s not as smart as God, he does not know the future, and he’s always playing catch-up. He uses the same worn-out tricks, over and over. God, on the other hand, has an endless well of new ideas to trip him up and make a fool of him. God gave us the last book of the Bible about two millennia ago, and thanks to his brilliance and the revelation power of the Holy Spirit, we are still finding new truths in it, catching Satan flatfooted. He never knows where the next punch is coming from.

This is why prophecy is so hard to understand. It’s not to keep men in the dark. It’s to humiliate the enemy and prove God’s sovereignty. The truth is in front of Satan and has been for ages, and he can’t discern it, but a ten-year-old kid full of the Holy Spirit can see it when God is ready to let it be known. Look at the second psalm. It lays out the plan of the crucifixion, but Satan wasn’t bright enough to figure it out. When he got Jesus cruficied, he thought he had won, but he was actually shooting himself in the belly! He destroyed his own kingdom on that day, and he gloated while he was doing it. He’s very smart, but his intelligence is limited.

It’s a mistake to underestimate Satan, but it’s a mistake to overestimate him, too. Most of the time, there is no subtext to what he’s doing, and defeating him is generally not that hard. His tactics become more and more foreseeable as you grow; you improve, but he does not. He can’t grow. He can’t adapt. His nature was fixed before the earth existed. The numbers and powers of his army were fixed. The numbers and power of God’s people will increase until the end of creation. No wonder he hates us. His development is over. His time has an end. We will improve and grow stronger forever.

Sometimes he wins a battle in spite of everything you do. But far more often, he loses. Maybe that’s because his resources are limited. If he had an unlimited supply of extremely powerful spirits to pit against us, maybe it would be a different story. As it stands, it appears that he has to allot them carefully, because we win many, many battles.

One of the things I pray for is that God will use me and my family to break Satan’s heart the way he breaks the hearts of human beings. I want to be used to blight Satan’s crops and crush his plans. I even want the church to have better music than the secular world, because music was Satan’s special gift. I want him to see himself forgotten and outdone and frustrated, before we assemble to watch him burn. He already hates me. I’m sure he’s doing all he can to destroy me and my family. I want to return the favor while I live. If you want to make a malicious person hurt, you just have to prevent him from doing harm. If I can hinder Satan the way he hinders human beings, I will consider my life well spent.