God’s palette of warm yellow, gold, and white sunrise awoke the mountain horizon. I could not tear my eyes as sunlight peeked over the peaks. As mesmerizing as this was at an elevation of one thousand three hundred meters (four thousand two hundred feet), the floating mountains compelled a long hard gaze. Spring was erupting here in such soothing, emerald greens. The guidebooks for the Camino claim that O’Cebreiro is distinctly similar to Celtic lands of Ireland and Scotland; if so, both own a piece of heaven on Earth.
Just as the trail was all so beautiful, so too was my spirit. I felt the spiritual blessings of the holiness in O’Cebreiro while anticipating my arrival at another spiritual recharger– the centuries-old monastery in Samos. I pushed aside my foot and blister pains of the past days. After all, I was riding a spiritual high! No thirty kilometers (eighteen and a half miles) walk could distract my mission to receive even more spiritual insight. Yeah, I was riding a spiritual wave, and I felt confident and assuredly filled with the Holy Spirit. I swelled with pride for what I’d accomplished these hundreds of kilometers, miles, thus far. First, O’Cebreiro, now Samos was coming up! This is exactly how My Camino was supposed to develop.
This morning, for some reason, a memory of a past offense slithered into my thinking. It entered as a little disturbing recollection of particular people in my past. Up dredged their hurtful words. I recalled the painful tone of their voices. Their harsh facial expressions. The loneliness I felt. The details of the old hurt sharpened, and grew more focused. I was reliving the ugly event in my mind and the pain in my heart returned.
Then, almost seamlessly, an even more painful recollection slid in right behind the first. Again, details of this pain slowly dawned on me. Their selfish motives. Their hurtful words. Cruel actions. The dishonor and even disgrace I had felt grew clear in my memory. The scab of the old wound was torn off.
One old memory after another bubbled up like a lava bed of horrible old hurts. Each old anger, worry, injustice, and shame came back with all the unfounded blame. Making each recollection more dreadful was the length of time each event played in vivid detail. I relived each negative emotion kilometer after kilometer. I carried these past wounds painfully in my heart nearly the entire day, hour after dreadful hour.
How my spirits crashed from the high I had felt early this morning!
I prayed.
“Lord, I am so close to Santiago. Days away. I only wanted thoughts of you. I wanted to stay on this morning’s spiritual high. Why did You remind me of all these unpleasant memories?
Precisely in the middle of my prayer, a redeeming truth overwhelmed me. God does not take us to relive old hurts! He does not take us to shame. Our Father does not take us to dishonor or disgrace. What had happened then?
A new truth confronted me. It was Satan! The Evil One! Only the Evil One destroys! Only the Evil encourages despair! Only the Evil One steals joy!
The epiphany burst like a champagne cork.
Satan. . . was. . . playing me! He was playing my old memories in order to darken My Camino. He was sapping the strength from my passion for Santiago that lay ahead.
He was playing his role perfectly as the “Father of Lies, Prince of Darkness.”
I saw it clearly now. My overconfidence, tainted with a bit of pride, had created the opening for Satan’s mischief. He gamed me! One old hurt after another. Plus my cooperation in recalling and feeling all those old events was his game’s motivation.
I could see what was happening. What a deceiver! As I thought through this, I allowed my creative juices to take over. I started to imagine something laughable. I envisioned My Camino day’s experience in a wild way. Today I had become a contestant on the television show, “Jeopardy.” I was playing, but this game was a high stakes competition for my soul.
This was S A T A N J E O P A R D Y!
Seeing it in this way made it possible for me to laugh at Satan’s attempt to steal my joy.
Here is how I saw it go.
A category of old hurt would tempt me. I imagined myself falling for the temptation to relive events of that heartache. I’d say, “I’ll take ‘People Who Have Offended Me for 200.” Offenses in my life of this kind would surface. Not long after exhausting my memory of all the pains in that category, I would be energized by emotions and the injustice involved. This enticed me to dwell on more and more pain and heartache. I would call for another category for 300, then 400, then 500.
Nothing breeds negative emotion like negative emotion. Negativity incites a hunger for more negative thinking, more rehearsing of past hurts. Hurt upon hurt upon hurt darkened the spirits within me that just this morning were bright and sunny.
Here’s where my imagination went further.
Other categories in Satan’s game show would include:
People who are arrogant, condescending toward me
Old hurts and emotional scars
Times someone stole or took credit for my ideas and benefitted
Loud, angry comments that disgraced me
Times I was taken for granted
Things I frequently worry about
I played all the categories and raised the stakes with each replayed hurt. The emotion was so deep, so easy to relive. I was full tilt into Satan’s game. Crazy as it seemed, replaying the upsetting memories was hard to stop. The energy was dark and selfish, almost habit-forming.
The more I dug into the details, the more hurt and negative emotion surfaced. The injustice of each event fueled an obsession to rethink the past, and see it in 4K, High Definition quality.
In hindsight, I recognized that nothing good came by reliving memories of old injustices. It only salted the wounds. The Deceiver stole my joy and re-broke my memories. And at what cost?!
Wow! All for his stupid game, S A T A N J E O P A R D Y!
I finally recognized where I had started this day and how pure my desires had drifted. I knew what I had to do. I asked forgiveness for my pride. I confessed my regret for even falling for the stupid game in the first place.
By God’s grace and on this day, I beat Satan at his own game.
