But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:3)

I spend much time on my knees, whether praying or pulling weeds. While I don’t always do these two things together, my Heavenly Father and I continually communicate. I feel incredibly close to Him when I’m basking in His creation.

I’ve been gardening for as long as I can remember. I vividly recall pulling onions and beans from our vegetable bed when I was 7, living in Nebraska. When we moved to Maryland, 6 years later, I took pride in the vegetables I helped plant and tend in our family garden, and was delighted to assist my grandfather as he harvested beans, corn, kale, squash, and tomatoes in his gardens. I’ve plotted, planned, weeded, cultivated, and tended gardens my whole life. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as home-grown vegetables.

Landscaping, too, is one of my favorite pastimes. Taking a blank canvas and creating colorful plant paintings has always brought me extensive joy.

Our Georgia yard has 13 plant beds. All but 2 have flowers, and all need to be weeded, mulched, and cared for in their own special way. As with every home I’ve ever lived in, the previous owners had no flowers and only used pine straw. I prefer using wood mulch for its aesthetic appeal.

When I first moved here, I ordered 12 cubic yards of mulch delivered to my house. The dump truck dropped it into my front driveway. It took well over a month to scoop the mulch into a wheelbarrow and tote it around my yard to the beds I’d weeded, covered with landscape fabric, and planted flowers in – both in front and behind my house. This year, David and I added a new vegetable bed to a sunnier part of my yard. He also cut, painted, and installed landscape timbers around everything, replacing my plastic edging and making everything look classier.

It’s taken 3 years and most of this summer to reach the point where my vision for the space is nearly realized. I still need to weed more and add flowers to one last bed, but everything looks beautiful. I was happy to hear David say our yard is like a park.

I see God’s fingerprints on all the brightly colored flowers, butterflies, and birds that visit our yard and marvel at the beauty of His creation. The hundreds of hours of sweat equity I put into the space are nothing compared to the joy that fills my soul as I look out at all the colors and life in our property.

Six weeks ago, something surprised me in our yard that forever changed the way I work in it. I follow a precise path when watering our backyard, strategically moving the hose around to bring me back to the hose reel where I began. It was when I doubled back to water one of our new beds that something caught my eye.

To prevent the birds from stealing our blueberries, David created a wooden frame with bird netting that covered our plants from tip to ground. While watering the vegetable bed behind one of the bushes, I noticed a coiled snake beneath it. I had just walked within feet of this plant as I watered several beds around it, never seeing the reptile.

“David,” I calmly called, “Come see this. It does not look good.”

I had warned David about the snakes in our area. There is a wet weather canal behind our home, and I’ve seen black snakes, racers, garters, and even a 3.5-foot-long corn snake in my garden. David rescued a toad from the mouth of a small garter snake – not once but twice in recent months.

“Snakes are good,” he said at the time.

“Some snakes are, but there’s a reason why the devil took the form of a serpent,” I remember telling him. “I don’t mind the good snakes, but I’ve heard from neighbors and even the former owner that there are bad snakes here, too. Georgia is famous for its rattlesnake roundup. I know neighbors who’ve seen copperheads and rattlers around here, too.”

After seeing this snake, David immediately knew that this one wasn’t the good kind. “He has a diamond-shaped head,” David observed. “I’ll take care of it.”

While David searched our shed for the proper tool to use as a weapon, I stood back and opened my Seek app on my cell phone, wondering if the application I used to classify plants might also identify snakes.

It did.

“David,” I exclaimed, “That’s a water moccasin. It’s venomous. Please be careful!”

As I stood back to watch, I began praying in earnest. “Please, Lord, protect him. Please keep David safe!”

While we weren’t sure if the netting that covered our plant would prevent the snake from striking, thankfully, it did. Two blows later, following David’s apology to the reptile for having to kill it, he picked the dead creature up and tossed it into the canal.

“You had to do that, David,” I assured him. “Thank God you were here to do so. I couldn’t have done what you did. It’s a miracle that it didn’t strike while I was watering around it. I was within a foot of where it sat and never saw it until I came back. It could have bit you, me, or one of the dogs at any time.”

“I know,” David replied. “I still didn’t like doing it.”

David and I were a bit nervous walking in the yard for quite a while after that encounter. “I’ve knelt all around this yard,” I told David. “Thank God the snake was under the netting today. Who knows what could have happened if he’d been anywhere else?”

While I was grateful that nothing happened to any of us with this dangerous creature lurking in our yard, it later struck me how Satan’s plans for us are so like those of that reptile. He’s always lurking around, waiting for just the right time to strike at us with his arsenal of fear, anxiety, stress, depression, anger, greed, and jealousy. We often don’t see him. He is a master of disguise and knows precisely how to manipulate us. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 11:14 that “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”

Many people no longer believe in the Devil – or they think of him as a caricature, with horns and a pitchfork, sitting on our shoulders, whispering silly thoughts into our heads that we can brush off with a simple flick of our hands. According to a 2023 Gallup poll, only 58 percent believe such a thing as the Devil exists. Only 1 percent more believe in a literal hell.

Believe it or not, there are now “After School Satan Clubs” in public classrooms across our nation. While these groups were created by The Satanic Temple (ST), an organization recognized by the IRS as both a religion and a church, the organization insists that they don’t “worship Satan.”  According to Lucien Greaves, the temple’s co-founder, the organization believes “the concept of Satan to be a ‘mythological framework’ that encourages people to question authority and follow ‘the best available evidence.” The group has gone so far as to use a cartoonish depiction of Satan as their club symbol to portray the Devil as a silly creature.

The group claims they will “only teach Satan as a ‘literary figure’ and that it ‘does not attempt to convert children to any religious ideology’ but ‘supports children to think for themselves.'” They hope to entice young people to join their clubs by offering “science projects, community service projects, puzzles and games, nature activities, arts and crafts, and snacks.” I think they protest too much, which makes these groups all the more suspicious. If they don’t believe in Satan, why use his name in their organization at all?

If these clubs are so innocent, why did this self-proclaimed altruistic group pay $100,000 for an 8,000-pound, 9-foot-tall statue of Baphomet – a winged, goat-headed creature frequently utilized as a symbol of  Satanism – to represent their temple? And why does this statue prominently feature two children staring up at the face of this creature if the ST agenda has nothing to do with luring innocents to the face of evil? And why is the statue housed in their so-called “conversion room” in Salem, Massachusetts, if it has nothing to do with seeking converts? And yet, the group would have no one question the purpose of their after-school clubs. 

Despite these claims of neutrality, kindness, and fun, 1 Peter 5:8 tells us to “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” We must stay vigilant, alert, and prayerful – connected to God’s Word and strengthened by his power if we hope to resist the Devil’s snares.

Ephesians 6:10 tells us we must “Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.” James 4:7 reminds us to “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.”

Whether it’s a snake in the grass or the Devil on the prowl, we can’t allow such things ever to gain a foothold in our lives. We must remain vigilant, alert, and connected to God’s Word. Only then can we successfully cut off the head of the snake and retain our victory in Christ.