Rest and War: Rhythms of a Well-Fought LifeSýnishorn

War: Understand the Enemy’s Playbook

There is a great scene in the movie Patton where General George S. Patton faces off against the Nazis’ most feared general, Erwin Rommel. Known as the Desert Fox, Rommel had written the book on modern tank warfare. The movie sets up the dramatic tension: How will the untested Patton hope to survive before the might of Rommel and his German Panzer tanks? What proceeds is a rout. The US II Corps destroyed the Nazi army led by their great general. The camera pans to the victorious Patton as he surveys the battlefield in the moment of triumph. Then Patton cries out, “Rommel . . . I read your book!”

Do you want victory over your spiritual Enemy? You must understand his playbook because he understands yours! His goal is to get you and me to sin. He wants us willfully engaged in activities that dishonor our Lord, distance us relationally from him, diminish our power to pursue our created purpose, and ultimately prove to be self-destructive. To move you down this path, he has studied your movements. He has observed your ways. He has watched the game film on you. Specifically, he knows two things: your wiring and your tendencies.

By wiring, I mean he knows that we are comprised of the mind, affections, and the will. We have a mind that is constantly engaged in a cognitive process, regularly interacting with ideas and reasoning. Additionally, we possess a heart that feels deeply. Our affections respond to information by being inclined either toward it or adverse to it, and our will is our internal drive to act.

Our Enemy also knows our particular tendencies and inclinations toward certain ideas or behaviors. He knows our particular proclivities—the unique, individual ways we are prone to react to something. Since the devil is armed with this information, what then is his strategy? How does he work? In order to convince us to participate in insane acts of self-sabotage willfully, he knows he must suggest certain thoughts that will stir our affections—so that we will enact our will. The Scriptures have a single word to describe this moment he works hard to manufacture: temptation. James 1:14-15 says, “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (ESV).

The word lure in the text speaks of attracting your mind’s attention. The word entice describes stirring your affections. You have entered into temptation when certain thoughts are solicited to your mind to stir your affections toward an activity that’s self-destructive and dishonoring to God, enticing you to enact your will to choose it.

Knowing the Enemy’s playbook is helpful, but what do we do when his attacks come?

Self-awareness is our first and most important response to an attack. What holds my attention? Why? What is stirring my affections? Why does it entice me so? What am I tempted to do exactly? Sometimes I say it out loud. Deception dies in the light. Drag it out into the open. Be curious about yourself. Be a student of yourself.

The apostle Paul implored his young protégé, Timothy, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:16esv). Paul told him to keep watch on his teaching or his doctrine. Know what you believe, Timothy. But notice he also told him to keep a close watch on himself. Know yourself, Timothy. Be a student of your wiring and tendencies.

In the classic manual on warfare, The Art of War, Sun Tzu declared, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. . . . If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”*

Let’s not allow ourselves to be in a position where we’ll end up succumbing in every battle.

Respond

Why does the devil target your weaknesses toward sin?

What thoughts and actions sabotage you and diminish your relationship with God?

Where do you need to redraw the battle lines in your life to eliminate temptation? How can conversation with trusted friends and with God himself help you do this?

*Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Leonel Giles, trans. (Mineola, NY: Ixia Press, 2019), 40.