One of my favorite types of music is Blues, especially old timey acoustic Blues like John Lee Hooker used to play. One of his songs, “Black Snake” is one of my all-time favorites. John sings about this old black snake that is crawling all around his house trying to get in and cause mischief of some kind. I wonder if that old Snake, old Satan himself, doesn’t spend a lot of time creeping around the church like that, trying to get in and stir up some trouble.  

   I imagine the snake old John Lee is singing about as some kind of big old chicken snake or rat snake. But, when I think of old Satan as a snake I imagine a big old fat Cottonmouth, about as big around as my arm and big old fangs just dripping with venom. Imagine him just creeping around the church, looking to get his venom into someone and stir up some gossip, or jealousy, or spite; anything to make the body sick, uncomfortable, and ineffective. So, what do we need to do about the old snake? Normally, if we see a Cottonmouth, or Water Moccasin as some folks call them, we usually grab for the nearest .22 or shotgun or go to beating on it with a stick. We just want to kill it anyway we can, especially if its hanging out around our house or property. But, guns and sticks don’t seem to work all that well with the Old Serpent, Satan. So, how do we run him off, or defend ourselves against him?

   Prayer is the answer, I think. Praying for unity amongst believers, just like Jesus did before He was arrested and sent to the Cross. (John 17:20-23) Praying that we can forgive others just like God forgives us. Praying that we love each other as Jesus loves us. Just praying about what bothers us, what hurts us, what makes us mad, that’s how we whip the Old Serpent. Seems like unity among believers was pretty important to Jesus. Unity was one of the very last things He talked to the Father about before His arrest. Yeah, I figure we were on His mind then, for sure. He knew how prone we are to arguing, and holding grudges, and falling out over first one thing and then another.  

   Tolerance is another thing we need to practice, I think. Tolerance for all the different and peculiar ways we have. Tolerance for just how irritating we can be sometimes. Of course prayer is needed here too. I know you’ll need to pray for tolerance if you’re going to be able to put up with me and my peculiar ways.

   Of course it is love, agape love, that will help us to tolerate each other when we start getting on each other’s nerves. Love is what we really need to pray for more than anything, I suppose. If we really love like we should, unity and tolerance will just naturally fall into place.

   So, next time we feel old Satan sneaking up and trying to slip that venom into us, we’d better pray, and pray hard!