The Devil Never had a Chance

by Bob Setzer, Jr.
My calendar disappeared. It’s not like I lost it or anything. It was “there,” then it was gone. Poof! Vanished without a trace.

The Bible says “The Devil goes about like a roaring lion looking for whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). The way I figure it, the Devil took a swipe at me. He opened his vicious, ugly mouth as wide as it would go and then sent his choppers crashing down. Thankfully, all he got was a mouthful of calendar. I slipped away unscathed.

Nonetheless, this mishap has greatly inconvenienced me and proven thoroughly unnerving. After all, who am I without my calendar? All those commitments neatly etched in the rows of boxes in April, May, June, and so on, give me identity and direction. Without them, my selfhood seems fuzzy, like an out of focus photograph.

John Locke, the Enlightenment thinker, said we all come into the world as a tabula rasa, a “blank slate.” But pretty soon our parents and siblings and culture are scribbling all over us, telling us who we are, what is good, what is bad, what boys do and what girls do and why Democrats or Republicans are to be regarded with suspicion. Eventually, we take up our own pen or keyboard and start trying to write our own script. But as my calendar caper, or unemployment, or divorce, or other such unsettling experiences soon reveal, it’s hard to remember who you are when the things that once defined you are snatched away.

Of course, the Bible says we are more than a tabula rasa. We are persons created in the “image of God” (Genesis 1:27), meaning there is within us a faint memory and haunting sense of who we are meant to be, namely, sons and daughters of God (John 1:12). But in the “real world,” we don’t take much time to ponder the depths of the self. We’re too busy trying to make the next appointment, or the next sale, or the next whatever. But then something happens to wipe the slate clean, and it’s just us and God again. Now what?

Now is the opportunity to start fresh, to start new, to make decisions about who we want to be instead of living on autopilot. This is hard, scary work, but exhilarating too. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” Paul counseled the Philippians (2:12). There’s a lot riding on what you do with your days because what you do with your days becomes your life.

So yes, I’m trying to recreate my calendar which is to say I am trying to recreate myself. For a while at least, there will be more blank spaces and more breathing room. This is a gift of grace the Devil never saw coming. Thankfully, he never does. “For God is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure!” (Philippians 2:13).

The Devil never had a chance.