OME OF THE BEST THINGS ABOUT LIVING IN TOOWOOMBA, QUEENSLAND, Australia, are the dry weather and relatively flat terrain. These factors combine to make it a wonderful place for bicycle commuting, especially compared to my rainy and hilly childhood hometown near Seattle, Washington, United States. I love making pastoral visits on my bicycle. It’s good for the environment, my health, and my bank account!
Recently I was riding to an appointment when I inadvertently entered a perilous “blackwhite” zone—what I call any area under surveillance by angry, territorial magpies. It was an innocent mistake, but over the distance of about a kilometer I was attacked at least seven times by three separate magpies. It was a terrifying experience for an American-turned-Australian like myself.
Having survived the ordeal, I immediately began soliciting ideas as to how to defend myself from such an onslaught in the future. Many of the experienced staff members of Darling Downs Christian School, where I am chaplain, had some wonderful suggestions. I went home and got to work on a collaboration of several of them. The only way I can describe the result is a whole bunch of thick wire attached via Velcro to my helmet. It might be ugly, but it kept the magpies away on my way to school the next morning. I’m considering submitting a request for a patent to protect my invention.
The Bible tells us there is a predator that’s far more dangerous than any magpie. First Peter 5:8 says: “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (NLT).*
Magpies can be annoying, but they aren’t very dangerous. By contrast, the devil wants to destroy us. The Bible teaches that the key to defending ourselves from his attacks depends on action taken before the battle begins. Just as Jesus responded to the devil’s temptations in the desert by quoting Scripture, we, too, can defy this roaring lion by recalling and reciting God’s Word.
Whether it’s resisting thoughts of discouragement or traps of temptation, nothing is more inspiring than the believer who responds to the devil’s lies with the truth of the Bible. But that defense is most effective when we prepare ahead of time by systematically studying Scripture and committing key portions of it to memory.
Consider how you can more regularly study and memorize God’s Word, so that you, too, can resist the attacks of the one so soundly defeated by Jesus at the cross. I don’t have a patent on this defense—but it’s something I’m working on all the time.
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*Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ” 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
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Casey Wolverton is chaplain at the Darling Downs Christian School ( A Seventh-day Adventist Institution) in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. He hosted the Hope Channel’s Sabbath School U between 2002-2006. He enjoys teaching his two Australian-born daughters how to speak with an American accent; cycling with his wife, Kate; all things Apple®; and the new living translation of the Bible.