Lesson learned: Satan's like a first-grade bully

This past year I had a student who loved to tease and annoy the other students in the class. He just got a kick out of it for some reason. He loved to push the kids' buttons and find their weak spots and make them unhappy. (I must admit that I am not really missing seeing him every day...) He especially loved to tease this one girl in my class. And, unfortunately, she made matters worse by spending too much time around him, listening to the teasing, reacting to it, and eventually coming to believe it. While I did have several conversations with this young man about how he needed to work on being a better friend, I also had many conversations with this girl, trying to explain to her that if she would ignore him and play with the other kids, he wouldn't love teasing her so much and she wouldn't be so unhappy. I wanted her to realize that while it was not nice for him to tease her, it was her choice how much she let him get to her.

While Satan is definitely more powerful and deceptive than a first grade bully, his tactics are very similar. Satan gets to know us, tries different methods to see what works best on us, and searches for our weak spots. And then the moment we give in and allow him in, he pulls us a little more to his side of the line... sometimes without us even realizing what just happened.

I'm not exactly sure why, but for some reason, it seems way easier to listen to Satan than the Spirit. I think it may be because a lot of the time it sounds more appealing, simpler, easier, popular, and, ironically, often sounds like it has more truth to it. But the more we let him in, the less control we have and the harder it is to discern right from wrong, truth from lies, the promptings of the Spirit from the desires of Satan, and we lose sight of the big picture and what we truly want.

I remember at one point, the girl in my class was feeling especially fed up with this boy and said, "I wish he could just go away and not be in our class anymore!" (Thank goodness for my teacher filter that kept me from saying that I was actually on the same page as her...)

It's the same with Satan—at times we may just wish he could go away for a little while and give us a break, but unfortunately, he's not going anywhere. We do, however, have control over how much we are around him. In first grade terms, we can make sure not to sit at his table or play in his group. We can make sure that we have good friends around us so he can't come single us out. We can ignore him the minute he starts to pick on us so that he'll come to realize that we are not going to be an easy target. And we can go to the Teacher and tell Him that we are having a hard time with Satan that day. My experience is that if I surround myself with good people, do good things, stay relatively busy, and pray for extra strength, Satan has a much harder time getting to me. It's when I'm home alone, just wasting time, and relying on my own strength that he is able to sneak his way into my thoughts.

Don't underestimate the strength and power that Satan can have if you allow him into your life. But, on the flip side, don't underestimate the strength and power that you have, magnified by the strength of the Lord, to stand up against Satan and his destructive ways.