Message in a motorboat

For a summer and a half I had the privilege of working at Ranger, a primitive camp across the lake from the main camp where I was a counselor for six summers. The boys and girls at Ranger slept on opposite hillsides in tents and lean-tos and met in a central valley between the two hills for cooking, camaraderie, jumping into the lake off of a huge two-story diving tower we built ourselves, and for massive games of flashlight capture-the-flag under the night skies.

The most memorable session at Ranger was a year and a half before I got saved. Two of my co-counselors that session were Gordy, the Ranger director that summer, and Carla, both of whom were bold, born-again Christians.

The first time I ever prayed out loud to the God of creation was after jumping off of the Ranger diving tower while taking a midnight dip with Carla.

“Let’s pray,” she suggested.

“Here? Now?!” I asked, incredulous at the non-religious setting.

“Sure! Hi, Jesus! It’s so fun to swim with You under the stars tonight. I love You, Lord…” and on she continued as we swam in the star-illumined, midnight water.

I talked to Him, too, telling Him how cool it was of Him to make nature and summer and camp and freedom. I didn’t ask Him to be my Lord that night, but how could I ever despise a God who listened so attentively and lovingly to two teenage girls swimming in a starlit lake at midnight?

A big deal that summer was the copperhead infestation at camp. As more and more of the snakes were discovered, it became a badge of honor among the guy counselors to catch a copperhead with their bare hands. Even one of the female counselors caught one. I was secretly envious of her; I wanted nothing more than to say I had captured a copperhead with my bare hands, but alas, I had already been bitten by three non-poisonous snakes that summer at different times while holding them. I knew something was off with my snake-handling technique, and therefore, catching a copperhead—although awesome—was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.

Gordy did catch one late in the summer, though, and holding it, asked me to drive him across the lake in the motorboat so he could release it way back in the woods. (We didn’t believe in killing copperheads back then. We all thought that “the children and the flowers are our sisters and our brothers”, a la “Rhymes and Reasons”, a John Denver song. That included copperheads, too.)

Gordy sat in the bow of the boat facing me with the copperhead in his hands. I pulled away from the Ranger dock and motored toward the other side of the lake.

“He’s trying to get away. If he does, he’s mad enough to bite one of us before flopping out of the boat,” Gordy observed.

“Well, don’t let him go!” I demanded, one eye to the lake and the other on the snake.

After a while, the snake stopped lashing around—and that’s when Gordy started preaching a message I’ll never forget. “He’s relaxing. His muscles are not tensed up beneath my hands. He’s just like the devil. If Satan can’t beat you by fighting, he’ll bide his time and seek a different strategy, just like he did with Jesus when he left Him for a more opportune time.

“You see, this snake is very aware of my grip. He’s testing me, I can tell, just like the devil does. He thinks if he backs off, I’ll get lulled into complacency. He’s waiting for my hand muscles to relax. And if they do, he’s ready. He’ll swing his head back and latch onto my arm!

“If a believer stands his ground against the devil, then the devil will back off—but he won’t give up. He’ll bide his time and watch for the Christian’s guard to drop and his life to get sloppy—and then, just like this copperhead, he’ll swing back and strike!”

I didn’t even believe in a literal devil at the time, but eyeing that copperhead as it went through its stages of fight and relax, fight and relax, everything Gordy said in that boat made total sense to me.

You certainly do have an enemy over whom you have authority—the devil. Resist him, firm in your faith, and according to the Word, he will flee from you (see James 4:7). But once he flees, don’t drop your guard; live not only harmlessly, but also shrewdly (see Matthew 10:16), armed with God’s Word every day of your life. That way, when the enemy seeks to return for a more opportune time—and he will—he will find you alert, ready in season and out, and without a single toehold by which he can slither back into your life.

Dorothy

And do not give the devil an opportunity. Ephesians 4:27