I am exhausted with the devil today. I am sooooo tired of his relentless effort to destroy what's sublime, degrade what's worthy, weaken what's strong, mar what's beautiful. I'm angry at his willful stubbornness, his grossly misplaced pride, his shameless machinations, his fostering of irrationality, his waste of the precious, his victimization of the susceptible. I'm sick to death of his constant, venal corruption.

And he hides, of course; always, he hides. He ducks, and covers, and stays in the shadows. He quickly throws up shiny, vibrant diversions; he changes shapes; he always moves left when you go right--and then comes stealthily circling in behind you, his piercing weapons drawn.

And heaven forbid that weakling should ever go after anyone with any strength. I do (believe me) understand what a dangerous assertion it is to make, but the fact is that the devil's grip on me personally isn't anything for him to be crowing to his loser minions about. I'm strong; I'm smart (enough); I'm happily married--mostly, of course, I've got religion. I know who I am--and I sure know who he is. And he knows I know who he is. So I'm of limited appeal to him. No one likes someone who laughs at what they want him to take seriously.

Besides, why bother with me, when there's two little boys next door being cared for by "foster parents" who are drunks? What fun am I, when there's a depressed teenage boy right across the street from me who's just started smoking pot? Why struggle with me, when there's a whole world of hurting, vulnerable people out there that he can work like a ball of putty in his slick, hot hands?

I'm so sick of it. I'm so tired of having to witness and suffer through the endless little pockets of hell created by the king of the sleazeballs for his own pathetic delight. I'm tired of the trash he makes, the stains he leaves, the holes he digs, the walls he builds. I'm tired of his craven opportunism. I'm tired of his glittery, superficial, caustic sexuality. I'm tired of his toxic insidiousness. I'm tired of his bottom-feeding frenzy.

Jesus, I know you do everything in your own time. Of course! And one of the great, engaging pleasures of we on earth is to contemplate the magnificence of your eternal reality, to reflect upon the humbling truth that a moment to us is an eternity to you. That's certainly true.

And of course we know you know this--but if you wouldn't mind us saying it again: When, in your holy benevolence, you are moved to come down here and once and for all stomp out the devil like the scampering, spitting, diseased cockroach that he is, trust that we'll be there with a can of insecticide and a hammer (or a shoe, or a shovel, or whatever else we can get our hands on) faster than you can say, "You wanna take a shot?"

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