This week, I laughed in the face of Satan. I realize that’s a strange way to begin an article about spiritual warfare. Satan isn’t funny. The destruction he causes isn’t funny. Lies aren’t funny. Gossip isn’t funny. Broken relationships aren’t funny. And watching circumstances unfold that seem almost perfectly designed to create more distrust, division, and pain in an already difficult situation certainly isn’t funny. But I laughed anyway.
There was a time when something went terribly wrong in my life and my first reaction was confusion. Why is this happening? How could circumstances possibly line up this badly? Why does it seem like every time something settles down, something else happens? After everything I’ve experienced during the past year, however, I’m beginning to recognize certain patterns. Sometimes circumstances become so bizarre, so perfectly timed, and so unnecessarily destructive that instead of being surprised anymore, I find myself thinking, Seriously? This again? That’s what happened this week.
Findley State Park in Wellington, Ohio, has become one of my favorite places to get outside. I’m there nearly every weekend doing something, hiking, mountain biking, fishing, kayaking, or playing disc golf. Depending on my work schedule, sometimes I’m there multiple times during the week. It’s a place where I can exercise, clear my head, pray, think, and simply enjoy being outdoors. A few weeks ago, I was hiking there and scouting out a section of mountain bike trail that I hadn’t ridden in awhile. I wanted to hike it first, get an idea of the terrain, and come back to ride it later. While I was on the trail, I unexpectedly came across a former acquaintance whom I hadn’t seen in more than a year. He asked how I was doing, and I briefly told him some of my story and what had been happening in my life, and asked him to pray for my family. There wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about the encounter. We talked for a little while, I continued hiking, eventually got tired, hiked back out, and went home. As far as I knew, that was the end of it.
Then this week I learned some information about what apparently happened afterward. I’m intentionally not going to share the details. They aren’t necessary, and frankly, some things are better left out of a public article. But let’s just say that what followed involved a certain measure of control, gossip, lies, assumptions, and punishment. Somehow circumstances surrounding an ordinary encounter on a hiking trail were turned into something that could once again throw me under the bus. Misperceptions about me were created even though no one ever asked me a single question about what actually was spoken about or what I was doing that day. The craziest part was that I didn’t even know any of this was happening after I left.
When someone finally told me about what happened this week, the two of us looked at the situation and laughed. We literally laughed because it was that ridiculous. Not because the potential consequences were funny, and not because lies or gossip are funny. We laughed because after everything I’ve experienced during the past year, I immediately recognized the pattern: Here we go again. This is now the third time during the past year that something similar has happened. Someone else does something I know absolutely nothing about, circumstances develop outside my knowledge and control, and somehow the fallout eventually circles back around and lands at my feet. Something I didn’t do, didn’t initiate, and sometimes didn’t even know happened becomes another reason someone could question my honesty or character.
A year ago, something like that probably would have consumed me. I would have become angry. I would have immediately wanted to defend myself. I would have obsessed over correcting every misconception and making sure everyone understood exactly what happened. This time, I laughed. I laughed in the face of Satan because I recognized what I believe he was trying to accomplish.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 2:11 that we should not be “outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.” That verse hits differently after the year I’ve had. Just a few days ago, I wrote Spiritual Warfare: What the Bible Says About Satan and Demons. In that article, I tried to look beyond my own circumstances and examine what Scripture actually tells us about Satan, what power he has, what power he doesn’t have, how he operates, and how Christians are supposed to respond to him. One of the conclusions I came away with is particularly important here: sometimes Satan doesn’t need to create the fire. He only needs to throw gasoline on it.
I want to maintain that same caution here. I can’t see into the spiritual realm, and I can’t point to every bad circumstance and definitively declare, “Satan did that.” People remain responsible for their own choices. People lie. People gossip. People misunderstand. People make assumptions. People sin. I make mistakes too. But Scripture also tells us that Satan has designs, and we aren’t supposed to remain ignorant of them. I’m beginning to recognize some of them: confusion, accusation, distrust, division, anger, bitterness, and isolation. I’ve seen enough of those things during the past year to recognize how destructive they can become, especially within a family that is already hurting. And I’ve begun to understand that one of Satan’s most effective weapons may not simply be what happens to me. It may be what he tempts me to do because of what happens to me.
That’s where the laughter matters. When I heard what had happened surrounding that ordinary day at Findley State Park, I could almost see the bait sitting in front of me. Satan wants me angry. He wants me bitter. He wants me terrified about what people think. He wants me obsessing over defending myself. He wants me to retaliate. He wants another misunderstanding to create even more hatred and division. This time, however, my response was different: Not this time. That’s what I mean when I say I laughed in Satan’s face. I wasn’t laughing because I think Satan is powerless, and I wasn’t laughing because spiritual warfare isn’t serious. I was laughing because I recognized the temptation before swallowing the bait. There is something freeing about that.
Then something else happened this week that made the entire situation even more interesting. My Uncle Michael has been experiencing some serious spiritual warfare of his own. His circumstances are completely different from mine, different situation, different people, different battle, and neither of us knew what the other was going through. Yet during the exact same week, we both independently started writing articles about spiritual warfare. We didn’t coordinate it. We didn’t compare notes beforehand. Neither of us knew what the other was writing. Yet Michael published Spiritual Warfare: The Enemy Doesn’t Need the Whole Door Open, while I was simultaneously wrestling with these circumstances and writing about Satan from my own perspective.
That’s what makes Michael’s article so interesting to me. His point is that spiritual warfare doesn’t always arrive as some dramatic, unmistakable event. Sometimes the enemy simply looks for the cracks—stress, unresolved anger, bitterness, exhaustion, distraction, or a neglected prayer life, and takes advantage of the opening. Michael and I were experiencing completely different circumstances, yet we were arriving at remarkably similar conclusions. Sometimes Satan doesn’t need much. He doesn’t necessarily need to create an entirely new disaster. Sometimes he can exploit something already happening a misunderstanding, an angry reaction, someone’s gossip, someone else’s assumption, a wound that hasn’t healed, or a little bitterness we’re unwilling to surrender. Give him the crack, and he’ll try to push on the door.
That’s also why my response matters so much. James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Notice what comes first: submit to God. Recognizing spiritual warfare doesn’t mean becoming obsessed with Satan. It doesn’t mean searching for a demon behind every inconvenience or blaming Satan every time something goes wrong. My responsibility isn’t to spend my life studying Satan. My responsibility is to remain faithful to Christ when circumstances tempt me toward anger, bitterness, fear, hopelessness, or retaliation.
That means telling the truth when others don’t, refusing to gossip when others gossip, controlling my tongue when I’m angry, praying when I want to retaliate, examining my own heart before condemning someone else’s, refusing to let bitterness take root, and trusting God with circumstances I cannot control. Maybe that’s one of the biggest lessons God has taught me through this past year. Recognizing spiritual warfare isn’t about becoming fascinated with Satan. It’s about becoming familiar enough with his tactics that they stop surprising me. A year ago, I might have looked at circumstances like these and thought, How can this possibly be happening? Today, sometimes I just laugh because I recognize the bait, and increasingly, I’m not afraid of it.
1 John 4:4 reminds me why: “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” That’s why I can laugh in Satan’s face. Not because the battle isn’t real. Not because Satan isn’t dangerous. Not because lies don’t hurt, gossip doesn’t damage relationships, or false perceptions don’t have consequences. I can laugh because Satan isn’t sovereign. Christ is. Satan can tempt. He can accuse. He can exploit confusion. He can take advantage of division. He can whisper into anger and encourage bitterness. But he doesn’t get the final word over my life, and he doesn’t get the final word over my family.
So when another bizarre circumstance appears, another misunderstanding develops, or something completely outside my control somehow finds its way back to me, I want to recognize the bait sooner. I want to pray before becoming angry, open Scripture before opening my mouth, tell the truth without obsessively trying to control what everyone believes, refuse to participate in the same gossip that has hurt me, and remember who the real enemy is before treating another human being like one.
And maybe I’ll laugh again, because after a year of seeing some of the same tactics repeatedly, I’m starting to recognize them. I’m starting to see the bait. I’m starting to see the enemy coming. When I recognize what I believe he’s trying to accomplish, I don’t have to give him the reaction he’s looking for. I can stand firm in Christ, shake my head, laugh, and say, Not this time, Satan.
