The message on their door was clear: No Bullys.
If you’re a bully, you can’t come in. Boo! Bullys
I asked Maddie what she meant by bullies. She said they are disrespectful, mean, and don’t care about you.
Anyone like that in your past or present? Any names and faces, times or places, hurts or scars come to mind? Maybe you were only a kid. But I bet you still remember where you were and how it felt.
Every adversary bullies differently, expressing their own predilection for physical, emotional, and/or psychological distress. But all have this in common: a track record of repeated, merciless, intentional harassment and assault. Your bully is relentless in his or her disrespect, meanness and disregard, as Maddie describes it, seeking to gain or maintain power by any means necessary. Bullies do not willingly release their grip on their oppressed.
Like the woman in Australia pecked to death by a rooster, the sharp, repeated stabs of an enemy can open a wound that takes the life out of you.
As we live lives of faith this side of Heaven, we would be well-served by sober awareness that one of the reasons it often feels like a fight is because there really is a war going on. Scripture speaks frankly of the reality of an ultimate bully who seeks to do just that, drain the life out of us, or “work us woe”, as the hymn says. We don’t want to give him more than his due, but let’s not fall off the horse on the other side either, pretending he isn’t real or of little consequence.
Among other names, he goes by Satan. He is a fallen angel, a sworn enemy of God and his people. Satan’s not a joke, and he’s not a force. He’s a personal, evil, evil being with an agenda that has each of our particular names on it. (Lord, give us ears to hear this afresh.)
He is “(our) enemy the devil, (who) prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (I Peter 5:8).”
He “was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).”
He “leads the whole world astray…an accuser of (God’s people)…filled with fury, because he knows his time is short (Revelation 12:9, 10, 12).”
But maybe today that’s not at the front of your mind. Your focus is on getting a little coffee, getting a little breakfast, getting a little traction, trying to live a life of hope and obedience and productivity and joy. Yet in your head you are assailed by a merciless review of past failings, a reminder of your many insufficiencies, and an unrelenting barrage of condemnation which erodes godly confidence and the freedom to lurch out of your stuck places.
That’s not bad karma or a full moon. You have a foe. An assailant of your soul, and of your God, and of all that is good and right and holy. A bully in the fullest, worst sense of the word. He wants to bind you up, render you ineffective, fill your days with defeat and despair, dissipate your life and blow it to the wind so that it counts for nothing. He bullies you differently than he does me, but his end game is the same for all of us. HATE. A WASTED LIFE. ULTIMATE WRECKAGE.
(“Now, now, let’s not overstate things,” I hear a reasonable voice soothe. “No point in sounding strident and paranoid. You’ll alienate your reader. Soften it a bit. In the meantime, aren’t you hungry? Have a snack. You can always come back to this another time when you have thought of something more encouraging to say.”)
Well, you know what, Devil, not today. Today I will push the words out of my mouth.
We live in a selfie age, where we are big and ultimate, and God, if he is considered at all, is small and made in our image. His name is punctuation and Jesus’ name an exclamation; we are scarcely jarred by the dishonor. Competing voices within and without unfold against a backdrop where a wide-scale erosion of reverence has long since settled into place, and where the holy has faded into what we learned long ago and far away, scarcely speaking to our present-day. Who can take seriously the idea of an enemy of our souls?
But you know what, Truth, by its very nature, is objective, not bound by our ability to imagine, appreciate, or fully understand, nor by our inclination to believe. We’re human beings, we have our limits, and we simply don’t know what we don’t know.
The question always gets down to this: who or what do we ultimately trust? On what do we put our full weight? Have we the humility to ponder ultimate issues and be open to correction? What we decide sets the trajectory for our days, and speaks into the ways we press forward.
Jesus said it straight:
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
We will have trouble.
BUT!
But we take heart — because trouble doesn’t get the last word. This why we can talk back to the “bullys” — tell them they have no welcome. We call to mind “the rest of the story”, as Paul Harvey would say: though foes exist, there is One greater than the world, our flesh, and the devil. One who lived in our place and died in our place to give us a “YET, nevertheless” hope.
To know how the story ends, flip to the back of the Book.
And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Revelation 20:10
That’s what happens to the bully. In the end, he is the one cast down for good.
Did you see the 2006 photograph of Saddam Hussein at his execution for crimes against humanity? A thick rope was looped around the neck of this once powerful man. The trapdoor was kicked open, he dropped, and his neck was heard to snap. A few minutes later a doctor declared officially that he was dead.
That is a picture of what is ahead for the bully of our souls. And he knows it. He knows his time is short. He knows his doom is sure. He’s already defeated by the Champion of our souls, Jesus. As I read somewhere, “The dragon has been slain, but his tail still swishes.” That’s why he works hard to weaken our confidence in God and to render our work ineffective.
BUT.
Nevertheless.
…”We say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
Hebrews 13:6
I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Psalm 27: 13
“The land of the living” — that’s this life.
That’s TODAY.
That’s us in TODAY.
Let’s go out in confidence, because
…the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
I John 4:4b
