The Devil Went Down to the Garden
One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
(The following is a very personal account of myself and a former girlfriend. These stories are not reflective of my present opinion of her, nor her of me. We’ve both walked the road of forgiveness, and I wish nothing but the best for her as I’m sure she does for me).
“I HATE YOU.”
It was a burgeoning day of spring. The rain had stopped harassing Portland, while the water remaining mixed with the nonchalant sunshine to bring welcome smells of new life and fresh breath. We were at a coffee shop on division, a cafe caught somewhere in the middle between gentrified, preppy hipsterdom and grungey, smelly hippy-dom. It hit all the selling points for me. But the delicious latte in my hand was the last thing on my mind.
Everything was grey. The green trees, the blue sky, the white coffee cup. All was empty, blank, and without color. She had been talking to me about something that was really important to her. But to be honest, by that time, it wasn’t important to me.
“I HATE YOU,” she said it again, louder, with more fervor. Most of the customers peered at us, equal parts awkward concern and vague empathy.
But I was gone. I “left the building” of my mind and heart. This sort of exchange was normal, if private and not usually this public.
Yet my body started walking away. And not a slight meander; it was just a notch below a jog.
Disassociation has always been my method to deal with trauma. And because this sort of emotional outburst was normal, I “left the building” quite often. But I rarely ran away.
We were around 28th street, and I booked it toward Cesar Chavez/39th street, eastbound. Even though I was “gone,” I didn’t want the world to see the dysfunction of my relationship so I cut over to Lincoln street.
Yet even with my maneuvers and speed, my significant other followed me all the way to the top of the hill, near Woodward and the big trees and the big houses.
Her eyes were big and brown and beautiful, as they always were. But she had “left the building” too.
All she saw was red. All she felt was trauma of the past.
After several moments of nothing save expressionless stares, we hugged each other and started to sob.
I love going to the movies. The planning ahead, speedy drive over, discussion of reviews, the arrival and scan of “Now Showing,” the smell of sketchy popcorn, receiving the torn tickets. Everything about the ritual is so centering, almost spiritual really. Forget Netflix; the illusion of endless choice has decreased my movie watching, not increased it. But Friday night at the movies? It’s always been my favorite thing.
So when I went to the movies, did all parts of the ritual, and had a pretty girl on my arm? It was, in a phrase I usually say sarcastically, “the dream.”
But “The Spectacular Now” really screwed with me. Screwed with my girlfriend too. Miles Teller brilliantly plays an incredibly likable class clown turned tragic hero while Shailene Woodley equally shines as a ridiculously lovely and wildly unrealistic class “nerd.”
They fall in love, struggle for a bit, fight, meet his father, etc. I won’t directly spoil anything but I will say indirectly the dynamic between the two stirred an envy in me I was not aware was there before.
Leaving the theater, I loved the movie and she hated it. I could smell a fight brewing as we talked about it, but I was as conflict averse as an Enneagram 9 and she always wanted to get to the bottom of an issue, to hash it out so we could move on to a different argument (like an Enneagram 8).
I don’t remember much of the disagreement. I think it was about how she felt that the girl in the movie wasn’t realistic or honest. I thought she was lovely, a caricature of a nice girl who was unthreatening, beautiful, and undemanding. One thing I remember completely was the last thing I said to my broken, curious, and long-suffering girlfriend.
“I just wish you were more like her.”
As I said it, a big thought bubble blew up in my mind, the word SHIT in all caps.
Where before in the previous story my ex saw red and explicitly attacked my identity, a year earlier, I implicitly attacked her identity with a subtle but equally insidious remark. And all she could see afterward was blue.
Both instances spoke to our deepest wounds. Both attacks were an attempt to avoid the pain within by spreading it out.
Both lies had a single author and single conspirator who planted these seeds of insecurity and sin long before either of us were born.
The Devil, also known as the “Satan,” has been misunderstood for centuries. Many people envision a lot of red, a lot of spikes, and a lot of cartoonish depictions of his evil. In fact, just like the mistyped blonde haired, blue eyed Jesus, the Devil has been able to do much more destructive work with society’s distorted view of him.
In the many wonderful Bible Project videos on the topic, they describe this illusory being in the Bible as an adversary.
Yet an adversary to what? Or better said, to whom?
In the first appearance of this Satan in Scripture, he plants “almost” truths to humanity. In fact, his tactics aren’t overly complicated or complex. Often, he merely adds the words “if” or “really” or any subtly deceptive notion which brings disorder to a certain and confirmed reality.
In other words, the Satan wants doubt where there was faith. Apathy where there was love. Depression where there was joy. War where there was peace. His approach, however, is almost always subtle.
This applies not just on an individual scale, either. This happens with the macro too. Conspiring in institutional evil, our adversary is ardently focused on keeping entire people groups systemically oppressed.
Keeping people of color down through institutional racism and white supremacy.
Keeping women down through reinforced patriarchy and lack of equal pay.
Keeping impoverished people down through school to prison pipelines and lack of well-paying, blue collar occupations.
Make no mistake; all of these deep evils are perpetuated and exacerbated by unseen but richly felt spiritual forces of darkness. Paul makes a point to note that our true enemies are not “bad” people.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
So then, if the Satan is at work to disrupt the individual and to disrupt society, how do we then resist? How do we “take a stand” against the devil’s schemes?
I really don’t like social media. I’ve written about it before. Using the parallel mentioned before about the individual as opposed to society, for me as an individual it always jump starts envy by exacerbating my tendency to compare.
“Look at their beautiful wife.”
“Look at their exotic vacation.”
“Look at their fulfilling job.”
“Look at that whopping amount of followers.”
Dozens of friends have told me they don’t see social media this way, but for me, I quite literally can’t help it.
In the simple act of logging into Instagram, Facebook, or the incredibly rare log into Twitter, the Satan has an open season of opportunity to implicitly attack my identity.
“You’ll never find someone.”
“You always be unlikable.”
“You’ll never accomplish your dreams.”
These messages come in subtly but soon become dominant. It’s the power of the unseen waves of oppression we feel when under attack from the adversary.
But what of explicit attacks? What’s the difference between an explicit attack and an implicit attack? An explicit attack is when our current president called entire people groups “rapists.” It is when Laura Ingraham told LeBron James to “shut up and dribble.” It is any public, harsh critique of another person intended to be heard by others and not just the person receiving the insult.
These assaults are rarer than implicit attacks. They may seem on the surface to be harsher because of their explicit nature, but the chaos they bring is comparably as damaging as implicit, more passive attacks.
They both start and end with the Devil’s scheme to come down to the garden of our hearts, the True Self hidden in Christ, and to unravel our sense of self, our connection to God, and our love of others. Sin works to keep us from this garden, for us to remain detached from who God designed us to be. The adversary uses it along with our darkened view of self, of God, and of others in order to trap us into believing in his implicit and explicit attacks on our identity.
His first appearance in the Scriptures confirms this. Although God bestowed incredible blessing and unshaken identity into Adam and Eve, the serpent questioned this reality. He starts by implicitly questioning what God stated explicitly. By saying, “did God really say that” in reference to the tree, the serpent undermines God’s word and God’s character. Eve replied to him correctly however; she responded with exactly what God told her and Adam.
But right here is where both Adam and Eve made a mistake. And It was an implicit omission as opposed to an explicit sin (which they did later). They kept on engaging with a being who isn’t worth engaging with. They did not turn to the One who loves them. Instead they listened to the one who desired to destroy him.
Yet Jesus Himself did not make the same error.
Jesus constantly went away to pray to His Father in the four gospels. This, in fact, was what enabled Him to do what He did. I already wrote extensively about silence and solitude, but it is worth repeating that the preemptive move to counter the Satan is to stay rooted in the vine. You might even argue that Jesus got His healing power, teaching authority, and potent emotional intelligence by getting “charged” by union with the Father. Jesus was doing self-care long before it became a fad.
Another way Jesus responded to the Satan was His deep, rich understanding of scripture. While the Devil knows the Bible well, even to the point of corrupting many Bible teachers into thinking their understanding of it provides salvation (John 5: 39-40), Jesus’ knowledge abided in His heart. Like the Psalmists often quote, Jesus is the best kind of reader of scripture because He delights in it, understands it entirely, and knows precisely how to interpret it for any specific context because He meditated on it constantly. The Satan cherry picks passages to promote his disinformation campaign. Wholly unconcerned with context or the heart behind any passage, he uses the word of God in an attempt to lie about the character of God. But Jesus never bought the Satan’s nonsense because He knew His Father and His Father’s word in the marrow of His bones.
Finally, responding to the implicit and explicit attacks of the adversary should always be addressed in community. Prayer and scripture knowledge can only go so far if the internal compass is not constantly being refreshed by the encouragement of others.
I have struggled all my life with identity. The Devil knows how to keep me down unfortunately well. But I remember when I first received the cards of close friends, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, over this past birthday. Their messages were so kind, their sincerity so evident that upon reading all of their words I did not hear attacks from the enemy for several days afterward. We are not meant to love God on our own. The only way we can become who our Father in heaven intended us to be is to be encouraged by our brothers and sisters around us. We first heard attacks from the enemy by the harsh, false words of others, so it stands to reason that the way we heal is by the gentle, true words of our friends.
We were at a spiritual retreat. I was well on my way to deconstructing this whole Christianity thing. She was too. At one point on the retreat, in fact, I said to her that I don’t know if I want or if I can believe this stuff anymore. I was kinda afraid I might burn in hell forever for even uttering that thought.
Fast forward a few hours, and we were fighting. Again. Even now I can’t remember the context of most arguments, but the bottom line is that we were both sensitive people, both had low self esteem, and had both dealt with trauma, although hers was far more severe than mine.
But suddenly I started crying. I might be a heart-on-sleeve melancholy type 4, but full on ugly sobbing is pretty rare for me. Yet in the car, going from one event to another, all my tall, tall walls came down. She stopped nagging. I had her full attention now.
“I’m just sorry for when I do things that hurt you. It’s not my intent. I’m a really broken person but I really do desire to love you well.”
Her big brown eyes got bigger and browner. She started to tear up herself, and then we embraced with a hearty, hearty hug.
I tell this story to show that even in the most dire of situation, we can always speak and undo attacks from the evil one. The Satan wants division above all else. Disunion is his area of expertise. Deception is his methodology to break people apart.
Therefore, our work and resistance is to build, maintain, and deepen union with God, with others, and with ourselves. We are holistic beings. What hurts us emotionally hurts us spiritually. What heals us spiritually heals us emotionally. When we participate in community, when we bring our whole hearts to God, and when we pour over scriptures with a deep desire to learn how to do the two things above better, the Satan’s attacks won’t be effective. He is powerless when we admit our powerlessness to God, not to him. God can hold what the enemy can’t. God understands in a way the Devil wants to confuse. God loves deeper than the enemy can withstand.
The battle is over. Christ has won. He even saw the Satan fall from the sky like lightning. His ultimate power over us is no more. So then, let’s reside in Jesus’ victory, Jesus’ love, and Jesus’ word. And let’s stop believing in the lies of the Devil.