Tie Him Up Today

Every day the world is abuzz with tweets and twitters, newscasts and texts, Facebook proclamations and e-mail conversation about how to put an end to evil.  No one seems to agree on how this might be accomplished, but one little girl has a pretty good idea of where to begin.

Recently my granddaughter Esther (age 5) participated with her mother and little sister in their first “Family School” /Homeschool lesson of the year.  As part of her ancient history class Esther wrote a short letter to her Heavenly Father.  At the top of the page front and back she drew pictures representing each of the days of creation.  Below the illustrations she began with the kinds of questions we all have and don’t ask any more because we are grownups, and because after all, we have come to accept our lack of information on certain things. She asked, “Dear God, What do you look like? Jesus, what do you look like?”  Esther is a lover of the great outdoors and most especially of animals, so of course she expressed her love for “trees,” and “water, because it’s beautiful,” “horses” and “porcupines, they’re nice.” And not wanting to take the time to name every member of the animal kingdom she simply acknowledged that, “All animals are beautiful.”  She also affirmed the fact that she loves, “all, all, all, all, all” her family and is grateful for Jesus, “because He loves us.”

The most interesting thing to me about Esther’s journal entry was that sandwiched right between her love for horses and trees and her gratitude for porcupines was the following question:

“And where is Satan?

This question was followed by her reason for asking:

“I want to tie him up forever and ever.”

Now I want to talk to Esther for a minute and the rest of you can listen in if you like—

Yes! Yes Esther! What a great goal! A grandma could not hear better news than that her granddaughter wants to, “Tie Satan up!” Reason being, that if we do not tie him up, he will tie us up.  That’s his big goal in life, to tie us up—to make it so we can’t move on—and  he doesn’t use a rope, or handcuffs, or a ball and chain made of metal—Oh no, he ties us up by tempting us to do things that make it hard to have the Spirit with us, and when we don’t have the Spirit with us, well, we might as well be tied up, because we can’t learn and grow  and become like Jesus and live with Heavenly Father again.

Now Esther, I can’t tell you exactly what Heavenly Father looks like, and I don’t know exactly where Satan will be lurking about today, but I can tell you that every time you choose to do the next right thing, the thing you think Jesus would want you to do, you tie Satan up, and Esther, you can do that today and every day. It doesn’t matter if you’re 5 or 105!

Truth be told, the big questions on everyone’s mind and #1 desire in everyone’s heart is the same as Esther’s. “Dear God, What do you look like? What does Jesus look like?” and “Heavenly Father, where is Satan? I want to tie him up.” The good news is that we can tie Satan up in our own lives, minute by minute, by simply choosing to do the next right thing! And as we string days and days of freedom together, we move closer and closer to that day when we will know exactly what Heavenly Father and Jesus look like, that day when Christ shall appear and “we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (see 1 John 3:2). Thanks for the reminder Little Lady!

By Nannette W.

Posted September 28, 2013

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