I recently read a commentary that reminded me that the name ‘Beelzebub’ quite literally means ‘lord of the flies’.
We’re quite good at either taking Satan too seriously or not seriously enough; I know I have fallen prey to both extreme ends of the spectrum. He is real, and he is the living definition of sickness, sadness, evil and death. His trademark moves are to steal and kill and destroy. There is a very real spiritual battle between God and his kingdom, and Satan and his; fortunately we know who wins the war.
My experience, on the whole, with the things of evil has been more in line with the ‘lord of the flies’ persona than with what we can sometimes imagine as a fiery monster lurking behind the wheelie-bin or in the corner of your bedroom at night waiting to pounce.
We’ve all experienced trying to enjoy a picnic, or trying to focus on a task, and having two or three flies buzzing around our heads relentlessly. Flies are small and easy to kill. They in themselves can do us no damage (most varieties anyway), but they have a way of flying close enough to irritate, distract and annoy us, and remove our focus from the task at hand. In these moments it is impossible to live in the denial of their presence – they don’t tend to leave by us pretending they aren’t impacting us. But if the flies become our focus, and we lose our joy in what we are doing (and lose our rag in floundering around trying to remove them), we tend to end up stressed, cross and irrational, unable to complete what we started.
The way ahead seems to be to focus on them long enough to swat them, but no longer. To identify where the flies are, take a good aim and swat them quickly. Then to return promptly to whatever we were doing. It always strikes me that when Jesus encounters demons in the gospels, He uses very few words – enough to command them to leave or be quiet, and then gets straight back to whatever He was doing. They never detract Him from His focus, they don’t affect His confidence in God and they don’t impact how He treats other people; He seems to interact with them in proportion to the attention they require to put them in their right place – very little – enough to remove or silence them, and no more. Surely that’s a model for us to follow when we encounter the lower level impact of evil in our day to day.
It’s a simple illustration, but it resonates with me in how I often struggle to mentally and emotionally deal with the little digs and niggles that come up during the week. They are never big things, but left unchecked, can accumulate in my head until the few niggles make me feel like the world is against me and its been an awful day. This strategy of niggly attack seems to be effective, when I’m not careful, of lowering my contentedness in God and in what He has given for me, and heightening my neediness and focus on self-preservation. It hinders my gratitude and colours my lens a slightly more pessimistic shade of hopelessness. And it really doesn’t take a lot – a slight misunderstanding in communication, being slightly overcharged in a café, a flat tire on the way to an important meeting, losing something important to me…
So, my aim at the moment, is to try and get better at recognising the little niggles for what they are – little niggles. I’m trying to recognise them, put them in their place and actively respond to them in a way that minimises their impact on my thoughts. It certainly doesn’t come naturally, but I like the thought that my days could be less robbed of joy and peace if I am ready to respond and not just absorb whatever is thrown my way.
Photo: Barbara Willi
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