On Following Satan

Take a deep breath, dear reader, let it out slowly, very slowly, and now please take another. Don’t light the torches just yet, and would you please untie me from this stake; at least until you finish the article.


“Satan wants us to either be preoccupied with him or to ignore his reality.” So how have I followed this course of action? Well, it was quite innocently and certainly not by design, but I must admit I indeed did follow.

I coached High School basketball for 25 seasons at a small private Christian school. During the first few years we were the “cupcake” on everyone’s schedule. That is until a group of athletes, all in the same class came along. I had been their 6th grade teacher we bonded that year. I have never coached a group that were closer to each other or who trusted in me as their coach.

As they entered Jr. High our relationship continued as I was also the Jr. High coach. We began to play a physical, hard-nose man to man style of defense. They accepted the challenge and were willing to give their dedication to learning a physical way of competing.

It was slow going at the beginning of the season, but their hard work began to pay off after a few games and their confidence rose. Our varsity was still getting beat and beaten up with regularity, but the Jr. High squad was beginning to win.

In South Florida during the early 80’s none of the schools in our division played man-to-man defense or at least not well. The result was that none of the teams had a well developed offense to play against a man to man defense.

Without going into detail that would only boar a non-basketball-junkie, I’ll simply say that our help side defense would have brought a smile to Coach Knight and our kids really liked the contact of boxing out.
Our style could have been called full court karate.

So what does this have to do with following Satan, you might ask, well just hang on and you will see. And no, I do not believe it is a good idea to see if I will sink to the bottom of a pond!

As this group reached varsity in 10th grade, we were unknowingly following the modis operandi of the Prince of Darkness. Teams expected to win easily and win big against us. They no longer did. Even when we lost, our opponents, battered and bruised, rarely cerebrated.

As that season worn on and during the next two years, teams either became preoccupied in the days before playing us trying to prepare a new offense. This played right to our advantage. Our opponent was so busy concentrating on the new offense patterns and responsibilities that our defense worked even better. Also since their coach seemed concerned – why the new offense – opponents also worried. By half-time we would have their patterns and assignments learned and with simple adjustments would totally dominate the second half.

These teams were often only a little more talented and athletic than us. We would beat them by thirty. The powerhouse teams just ignored us, expecting to win – they always had before – due to sheer talent. I can’t say I really blame them, there were some really talented teams.

Though we pulled only a few upsets, teams who were accustomed to scoring 70 – 90 points a game and were looking forward to putting up 100 against us and padding their personal stats typically struggled to score 50 against us.

Frustration grew and blame among the opposing player began to flow like a cancer. Several of these talented squads had coaches who appeared to have been trained at the Bobby Knight School of Persuasion and Motivation. As their coach became more animated, we began to bait a trap.

With special coaches like this, we applied another of Satan’s tricks, we lied. Calm down, I have confessed and repented; it was thirty years ago, already. And no, you can not use that as evidence. Furthermore I will not walk nine feet, over red-hot ploughshares as proof I am not in league with Satan.

Our players were adapt at the use of language to cause doubt and sow division. They could spot a disgruntled attitude quickly and then went to work. A simple, “Why don’t they give you the ball more?” Spoken at the right moment to a leading scorer would be sure to ignite teen tempers. Once a few flames were lit; we verbally poured on the gasoline.

Though I did not see these strategies as from Satan at the time, I now see the correlation between either ignoring or having a preoccupation with an adversary as frustrating any advance. You see we should not have been able to compete but by shifting the focus away from our opponent’s strengths to ours we often prevailed.

The disharmony among many brothers and sisters in Christ not only between congregations but may be due to lies being whispered by an enemy. Certainly not accepting that we have an enemy or underestimating his abilities hinders the advance of the Kingdom of God.

Equally dangerous is focusing our attention on his schemes. Another lesson I learned as a coach was do what you do best and be only a little conscious of the other team’s methods. If my players sensed that I was worried about a rival squad they became more so.

OK, so here’s what I am trying to say. A Christian’s primary task isn’t to avoid sin, which is impossible anyway, but to recognize sin. Well, that’s not really our primary task but in order to move along. There is an enormous amount of self-deception in sin. When this is combined with devil-deception, the task of recognition is compounded.
We have an enemy, whose purpose to kill, steal, and destroy. Not so unlike HS basketball. If we become too preoccupied with our enemy he has an advantage over us. If we pretend he is powerless or non-existent he may have a field day over us.
One last stroll down memory lane, a lesson I learned as a coach was to keep it simple and do what you do well. Yea, as coach I studied the other teams but never made a big deal out of it to the players. Maybe we should just keep it simple; you know, love God and love your neighbor.