Satan Get Behind Thee
By Timothy W. Tron
Burke County
“When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together he rebuked the unclean spirit and said to him: “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you. Go out from him, and never enter him again.” And after shouting and convulsing him greatly it went out. And he became like a dead man so that many said that he was dead. But Jesus took hold of his hand and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he entered the house, his disciples were asking him in private: “Why could we not cast it out?” And he said to them: “This kind cannot go out by any means except by prayer.” Mark 9:24-29
Stuart walked into the house swiftly and with purpose; like a Navy Seal team, every asset was accounted for, and every variable had been studied in preparation. He had spent the last eight hours while driving home going through the mental list of possible causes for what lay ahead. Days earlier, his wife Stacey had called while he was away visiting family, saying that she didn’t think the upstairs air was working. He would have left immediately if he hadn’t already agreed to participate in his late Uncle’s memorial service. However, there were too many people counting on him. He spoke with Stacey about a possible workaround that she was willing to implement until he could return. Needless to say, there was that annoying thought of something needing to be done that he could not address. It lay in the back of his mind, contaminating the remainder of his visit, like a thorn in his side – something he strongly detested yet couldn’t shake. The thorn reminded him of the old tractor that sat out back of the house. For several years since they had moved there from the farm, he had tried to sell it, but again and again, each potential buyer had fallen away. They always seemed to come up with some excuse, even when their initial response to his ad had seemed so promising. The old tractor had become another thorn that seemed to continue to lie dormant, waiting to hound him when he was down, like now. Stuart knew that he had a duty to provide for his loved ones, yet it always seemed like when he was away, everything fell apart through no fault of his own. All this kept following him like a shadow, the unspoken problem that wouldn’t leave.
So, when Stuart pulled out of his sister’s drive to head home, he began praying, “Lord, thank you for this beautiful day, and thank you for all the blessings in my life. Lord, please help me safely travel home, and please help me figure out the problem with the AC. And Lord, if at all possible, help remind me to put the tractor in the paper again so we can hopefully sell it this summer. – Amen”
Finally arriving home late Friday afternoon, he dumped the contents of his cooler in the fridge and began going through the mental checklist of solutions he had planned in trying to fix the AC. Since his wife, Stacey, was at work, the healthcare worker, Vicki, was attending to his mother-in-law. She had her job; he had his. His mother-in-law, Martha, had come to live with them several months ago when she could no longer handle living in the nursing home in Florida. It was just too uncomfortable for her there, both physically and emotionally. The separation from the family was the worst part. So, when the question came up about her moving in, Stacey asked if Stuart wouldn’t mind. He knew in his heart that he couldn’t say no, even if he and Martha didn’t always get along – it was the right thing to do. Besides, that was the past. Serving God fully meant loving everyone unconditionally, even one’s mother-in-law.
Outside, it was reaching nearly eighty-five degrees, and the house was already an uncomfortable seventy-nine. Time was of the essence. It had turned unusually warm for May. Receiving Stacey’s phone call immediately struck panic in his heart. Unfortunately, there was little he could do remotely. From his wife’s incessant hoarding, she had blocked access to the air handling unit in their garage, making it impossible for Stuart to call someone remotely to fix it. Stuart knew from experience that the fix could be as simple as an HVAC zone issue. To correct it, one only had to simply manually move one of the vent motors to unblock the duct. But to convey this to Stacey, seeing as she had no idea where or how to operate the motor, Stuart might as well have been trying to speak to an alien on the Lunar surface. There was no way she could be his eyes and hands. Then there was Martha, nearly bedridden, dependent upon the family for everything, including her comfort – now trapped in a house that was slowly growing warmer by the minute.
All of this, the problem with the air conditioning, began the day following a very successful day of outreach ministry. Stuart had come to recognize that anything that appeared to be a triumph for God, from bringing someone to salvation to an evening of sincere worship, was usually followed by some attack by the enemy, Satan. These assaults weren’t always so obvious. But, like this one, it was pretty clear. It was during these times of tribulation Stuart felt like a man standing in an open boat as the storm raged around him. The man, unfettered by fear, looks out upon the tempest and calmly directs those souls around him who are fearing for their lives to do this and that, things necessary to keep the boat afloat – to survive. Knowing that these things will occur and seeing that God is the one in control, he, the man in the boat, can, with confidence and blessed assurance, know that even within the most horrendous storms of life, God’s got this. So, when Stuart received the call from his distraught spouse, he quickly realized this was the latest assault. Thankfully, in the meantime, until he could make it home, Stacey could run the fan, thus circulating the air from the basement to the upper level, maintaining a manageable level of comfort until he could return. So, this had set the stage for when Stuart pulled into the drive that blistering hot Friday afternoon.
The first thing Stuart did was to check the vents in the floor. It was apparent that something was wrong beyond just the blocked vent – the air was barely cool. Stuart continued through the usual checklist for when there were AC problems. As he entered the living room after coming up from the basement, the healthcare worker, Vicki, came out of the master bedroom where Martha was staying. She seemed somewhat bothered. The look on her face was blunt and distant – it spoke of someone who had heard something deeply troubling but had yet to process it. Holding the phone in her hand as if uncertain what to do next, she turned to Stuart and said as if speaking to the air, “You don’t happen to know of a minister we could call, do you?” Stuart looked at Vicki, almost dumbfounded. But then, when he realized what she had said, he understood there was something wrong beyond the physical.
“Martha’s really distraught and keeps repeating over and over again something about demons controlling her body. She said that she needs to speak to a minister.” Then Vicki paused, and with a voice of deeper concern, “I think it’s important to let you know that she hasn’t slept for the past three days because of this.”
Stuart’s mind raced back to the time when Martha had told him that she had done all the going to church that she needed to in her life when he asked her one morning if she would like to go with him to church. Indeed, when one faces the prospect of death, their demeanor can quickly change. The once overly confident to a fault woman now was clutching at the air for truth, for anything that could take her from the hell she faced whenever she closed her eyes. It was as if the darkness was trying to consume her mortal soul.
Almost simultaneously, Stuart thought of the times in the past when there had been opportunities to stand up and be recognized as a minister or pastor, but he had remained seated. Each time, he had felt a conviction afterward, one asking why he hadn’t stood. Here it was again, the question. But unlike before, this time, there was a sense of “Now is your time.” Without another moment’s hesitation, Stuart headed for Martha’s bed chamber.
Entering the dimly lit room, the smells of a bedridden soul, a mixture of body fluids and still, suffocating air, immediately hit him. He approached Martha’s bedside and saw the shriveled body and limbs, the bones trying to protrude through the flesh, like aged, yellow wax paper barely able to hold back the skeleton within. She lay on her side, her hands up near her face. Stuart carefully sat on the edge of the bed as her once bright blue eyes now looked up at him through their smoky, glazed perplexity; a look of terror contorted her brow into deep furrows. She spoke in a raspy, hollow voice, “He was here, the demon. He was throwing me around the room while he held me by my ankles. Look at them, look, can’t you see the bruises,” she said, pointing with one outstretched, noduled, crooked finger toward her legs clutched in the fetal position. The Vicki drew alongside Stuart, quietly whispering in his ear as Martha continued, conveying to him how she had fallen out of bed the night before. Stacey had been unable to lift her by herself and had to call the EMS. And yes, it was true; she did have a bruise on her thigh.
While Martha continued to recall the images of horror, Stuart, for a brief second, could picture Martha being thrown about by some demonic, unseen force. The scene became more than an image as, for a moment, he too could feel the presence of a dark spirit. It sent a shiver up his spine. It was as if the darkness was beginning to find a crevice within his own soul, working its way into his being. He quickly called upon the LORD, forcing the dark figures to vanish. Before those thoughts could continue, Stuart gently took both of Martha’s hands in his and began to speak to her in calm, reassuring tones. She continued to desperately convey to him that she was certain that something was trying to kill her, that it had thrown her on the floor the night before. She was certain that he was going to continue to beat her until she died. “You’ve got to stop him,” she cried, grasping her bony fingers into Stuart’s flesh.
Suddenly, from where he didn’t know, the feeling that he needed to pray the demon from her being flooded into his mind. He had never done anything like it in his life. Yet, here was God nudging him to act and act now! As he held Martha’s hands – the woman who had turned her back on God, the one who adamantly insisted she had it all figured out, who was content on living without God in her life – he began to pray that in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, that God would cast out all demons from this woman’s body. He began repeating those words again and again as his mind focused on Jesus. As he spoke, there suddenly came a change in Martha’s demeanor. Her breathing began to ease. Where there were once deep furrows, a sea of tranquility parted the skin, making it as smooth as glass. It was obvious, to the point, that Vicki dropped to her knees on the floor behind Stuart, desperately praying openly and along with Stuart.
The sea of darkness had parted, and before them, it was as if an open, dry seabed lay waiting for them to escape. Stuart looked up and realized something had transpired, but what? Then he looked at Martha, and it became clear. She was physically changed.
Before him, Stuart looked at the face of serenity and peace. The soul had been cleansed beyond human touch. Yet, Stuart knew that if the house were left empty from where the demon had been discharged, it would return. Stuart knew he had to close and bolt the door as quickly as possible. Then, without fail, he must somehow invite the Holy Spirit within. The memory of her resistance to going to church returned. The conventional method of asking someone to receive Christ into their life may not work. If he did this wrong, she faced the possibility of being repossessed. “God, what am I to do,” Stuart cried out. In a flash, the answer came to mind. It was then he asked Martha to repeat after him.
Stuart began quoting the twenty-third Psalm as he lovingly stroked the forehead of the woman who had, at times, been one of the biggest detractors in his life – someone for whom he could do no good.
“The Lord is my Shepherd,” Martha repeated, “The Lord is my Shepherd,”
Stuart: “I shall not want.”
Martha: “I shall not want.”
Stuart: “He maketh me lie down.”
Martha: “He maketh me lie down.”
They continued, and as they walked through the valley of the shadow of death, where God told her she should fear no evil, her eyes began to grow heavy, and her voice began to fade. By the end of the Psalm, her voice barely a whisper, Martha ended repeating after Stuart, “And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” a pause, “and ever,” another pause, and then in one last exhale, “…Amen.”
Martha then fell into a calm, deep, serene sleep. Finally, at peace, she was free of the demon that had been tormenting her for the past few days.
Not sure of what had happened, Stuart quietly stood, looking at the nurse with a look partly of bewilderment and satisfaction. Had they just seen what they had seen? Not saying a word, each realized they had witnessed something special.
Stuart left the room somewhat numb from the encounter but kept true to his previous mission. It was then that things seemed to take on a life of their own. It was as if another hand was now in control. Within minutes, Stuart was able to get hold of an HVAC repairman who came immediately and, within thirty minutes, had the AC working. The same repairman saw that Stuart had an old tractor sitting in the sideyard and asked, “What’s up with that old relic over there,” he said, pointing at Stuart’s other thorn, the old tractor. “Yeah, I’ve wanted to sell it for some time but never get the time to put it in the paper.” The repairman responded with, “Does it run?” “Sure, it’s just got a dead battery at the moment.”
Mind if I take a look at her?
No, not at all.
Minutes later, after looking it over, the repairman said he wanted to buy it.
Stuart couldn’t believe his ears.
Another prayer was answered.
Later that evening, as Stuart recalled the day’s events to his sister on the phone, she said, “We’ll, now you’ve got another testimony to share.” It was then that it hit Stuart: how he had been faithful even through the storm, not giving in to Satan’s fear but keeping true to his mission, and then, when called upon, answering the call to do what needed to be done, even if it was something that he had never done before. As he reflected on the event, he realized that when he felt God leading him into that dark, ominous room, he never doubted for once what he was about to do, nor did he now. Then it hit him: the prayer he had prayed over Martha had been nothing he had to think about; it was as if the words flowed through him despite what the urgent need required. Likewise, the healthcare worker joins in, echoing the voice within, “Where two or more are gathered, there I am also.” The Holy Spirit had dwelt upon them, and through them, casting out that which alone they could not.
As Stuart knelt in prayer that night before turning to bed, he thanked God once again for being there for him and his family, guiding them, delivering them from all evil. As he pulled the covers up to his chin when crawling into bed, and thought of the string of events that seemed to happen so fast. He thought of the many days of torment and how the problem had hung over him like a cloud. It wasn’t until God called him into service when he didn’t hesitate but responded, that it seemed like those things that took an eternity to formulate a plan for had suddenly resolved themselves, like the Master’s hand working out a massive puzzle. It was all done in the blink of an eye. Then it was there again, that comforting feeling of the Master’s touch. Stuart closed his eyes, mouthing the words, “Thanks be to God. A feeling of bliss enveloped his being, and he soon fell into a peaceful slumber, unlike any he had known in recent nights.
And the Angels sang in unison, “Thanks be to God.”
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Timothy W. Tron lives in Collettsville, NC. with his family. He is currently the Systems Administrator for the Computer Science Department at App. State. Timothy is the former Director of the Trail of Faith in Valdese, where he still volunteers and helps with tours. He is the author of a new Christian series, “Children of the Light”, with the first book being, “Bruecke to Heaven”, revised as “Bridge to Heaven”, and his recent book, being the second, “The Light in the Darkness”. He is an active blogger, artist, and musician. Timothy also has a BSEE from UF, and is a Lay Speaker. He is currently acting as the Faculty/Staff Liaison for the Ratio Christi campus ministry at App. State. He can be reached at trontw@appstate.edu You can visit his website at //www.timothywtron.com/ or see more of his writings HERE
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