Monday, March 15, 2010

The Devil Strikes While the Defenses are Down

Forgive me if this post if filled with typographical errors. I got about 5 hours of sleep Thursday night followed by about 2 1/2 on Friday. Then in what I am convinced was a twisted joke designed to torment me, daylight savings time began Saturday night meaning I lost an hour of sleep that night too. Finally, I was supposed to be in Salisbury, Maryland by 8:00 this morning (about a 2 1/2 hour trip) so I woke up at 4:30 am to get ready and get out the door.

To add insult to injury, at about 6:45 am I was driving through Dover, Delaware when the "Check Engine" light came on in my car and the engine started sputtering. This was not good news. I pulled into a drug store and checked the oil. It was a little low but nothing that should have caused the problems I was having. Nevertheless, I waited until the store opened (at 7:00), bought a few quarts and filled it up. With a "glass is half full" sense of optimism I turned the car back on hoping that the check engine light would now be off. No such luck.

Now I needed to find a service station and hope that my car made it there without the transmission falling out the bottom. I found a place about a mile up the road (thank goodness for GPS) and arrived right when they opened (7:30). Considering Dover is over a hour from Salisbury, making it to my destination by 8:00 was not going to happen.

I will gladly give a free plug here to Winner Ford in Dover. The folks that work there were extremely courteous. They agreed to take a look at the car (even though it was not a Ford) and eventually gave me the diagnosis. I need some new ignition coils along with a whole slew of other items (I checked with a mechanic friend of mine afterward and all their recommendations were on the up and up; insert another generous plug here about Winner Ford's honesty). The bad news was that they did not have the parts in stock (a problem I have had repeatedly with my make of car no matter what service station I go to). The earliest they could get them in is tomorrow morning. So my car had to spend the night in Delaware, about an hour and 20 minutes from home. Rental car here I come.

Lest you start to believe that the purpose of this post is just one long rant about what a bad last few days I have had, let me reassure you that there is a point and I will try to get to it. The point is that I am tired. I am really tired. When I got home my two year old son wanted to use me as a jungle gym. When he was done I didn't think I would even be able to get up off the floor for a month.

It is times like these that are the most dangerous. When we are weakest we are most subject to temptation. This can occur when we are tired, angry or any other time when our defenses are down. I often tell my clients when their deposition is taken to beware of a common trick some lawyers use. I have seen lawyers deliberately speak in a very belittling tone. It is not so much in what they say (because that would show up in the transcript) as in how they say it. A really good lawyer will have this down to an art. The lawyer on the other side knows that people do not think before they speak when they are angry so they deliberately try to make my clients mad in hopes that they will say something in anger that will doom their case.

The same is true for Satan and the temptations of this world. Beware of the times when you are very tired or angry because it is then that the temptation to sin is strongest. Discipline yourself. When you get into one of these states, make every effort to get God on your brain. Use whatever method works best for you. Pray. Sing a hymn. Listen to a good lecture or sermon.

However you need to do it, fix your sights on Jesus. An idle mind is the devil's playground, but with Jesus blocking the door to your house, Satan won't be able to get in.

God bless you all.

1 comment:

Ten Minas Ministries said...

I think I made it through without any major typos. But what you can't see by simply reading this post is that (in my overwhelmingly tired state) I did not even realize what blog I was writing on and originally posted this to the wrong blog. Oh well. Problem fixed. This is where it was supposed to be.