Is a hard thing for many of us to believe in. Satan. The Enemy. Beelzebul. The Prince of Demons. Whatever you want to call him, images that we can see quickly overshadow any reality that we can’t see, making the whole notion seem rather fictitious. Like Vader, or Sauron, or Voldemort, the Wicked Witch of the West, or the guy in red tights with a pointy tail and a pitch fork. They all make the idea of a supernatural evil being seem like ancient mythology, or sci-fi fiction, or religious fake news.

But then, if we’re going to take Jesus seriously at all, we have to reckon with the fact that he took the idea of a singularly evil being quite seriously himself. And that he seems to understand some things about this being that may clash with our fictitious images:

Are a dime a dozen. Well, really they’re usually a lot more expensive than a dime.

Want to live a more peaceful and full life? Buy this product. Upgrade to this device. Visit this exotic location. Take this course. Eat this. Drink that.

I’ve heard it said that each of us is like an empty chalkboard, waiting to be filled up. We must be taught and instructed and trained throughout our lifetime to do just about everything. We depend on others, whether parents or teachers or friends or mentors or authors—even others who are perhaps unqualified or unwitting—to scrawl their wisdom onto our hearts and minds.

But then, of course, we accidentally brush our shoulders against the board, smearing the chalk. Life has a way of blurring sections into a big smudgy mess. Or someone walks by and intentionally drags their mischievous hand across it as they pass, like a punk middle schooler.

Love is a Four-letter word. Literally. In English, at least. So also is the Spanish verb, now that I think about it: amar. A quick Google search shows that this is also largely an English-speaking phenomenon. But you get the point.

Obedience is also a four-letter word. Metaphorically. Again, at least to most Western, English-speaking ears. We don’t like to be told what to do. We prize our self-determination above almost all else. We like to believe, at least, that we are our own masters, that we have made up our own minds and do only what we want to do. For the most part we’ll be compliant with the law, but the idea of plain-old obedience rubs against independent grain.

Is not fully love. Love must be external. Visible. Manifest. Tangible. Able to be heard and seen and experienced. Full love is more action than emotion, more doing than feeling. It’s more about decision than desire, more about practice than passion.

Feelings are fine as far as they go. The funny thing about feelings and actions when it comes to love, is that the loving feelings can either precede or follow loving actions. Sometimes we are compelled to do something because we feel a swell of love for someone. Sometimes we find that we truly feel love for someone once we have done something loving for them.

I remember, and ask you to remember,
your promise, Lord Jesus:

Do not leave me as an orphan,
alone and vulnerable,
brotherless, sisterless, fatherless, motherless,
providerless, protectorless, teacherless.
Come to me!

How long is “before long”?
Your people have waited and waited.
Grant me the patience to wait
as long as it takes.
Until you come in all your glory,
may I notice the ways that you come
in your little glories.

Depends on what you put into it. The better the relationship you have with someone, the more you will benefit from it. Your life will be richer because of the relationship; and your life will be poorer if it is lost. And hopefully, this goes both ways. Relationships are, after all, a two-way street.

Good relationships are costly, but they are worth it: Proximity. Time. Listening. Vulnerability. Trust. Patience.

At some point. At some point. In some situation.

Life is such that we will all hit our limits of time, resources, patience, and power. When what we are facing cannot be faced alone. When what we need is more than a friend who will console us, but rather an ally who will fight for us. Someone who will stick up for us when we can barely lift ourselves out of bed.

To be clear, Jesus is not a genie. He is not trapped in a magic lamp that if you rub it in just the right way, saying just the right words, he will then grant you whatever you wish. But he sure does say some things that sound like that’s the case.

“I will do whatever you ask in my name.”

“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

Whatever? Anything? Those are some wide limits. I could fill up whatever with a lot of things, and my list of anything could be pretty dang long. As long as I use your name? You will do it all? Sounds too good to be true. Because it is.

Begins with being as Jesus was: close to the Father.

One of the richest and most puzzling words in the Bible, particularly in some passages where Jesus talks about his relationship with the Father is a tiny little word: in. In most common usage we understand it makes obvious sense. In fact I just used it twice when saying, “in the Bible,” and “in some passages.” It locates a word being referenced. Or if I say, “The dog is in her crate,” you can picture that. Or if I say, “The jelly is in the fridge,” you can find it.

But “I am in the Father,” and “the Father is in me”? Not so clear. How can a thing be inside the thing it is already inside of?