Two years ago, my family was taking a cross-country trip from Massachusetts to Washington state. We stayed in about 20 hotels, and this story takes place at a hotel in Tennessee.

I was sitting on the couch, waiting for my family to get ready to go to a giant farmers market just down the road. It was around early to mid June and like I said, we were in Tennessee, so I was wearing shorts because it was hot. Well, I scratched my leg and felt something, but I assumed it was a bite or something, and scratched more because it felt really weird. Then I looked down and saw a TICK on my leg and started screaming.

Like, screaming.

In the hotel.

Where you can hear anything and everything through the doors.

I jumped up, and continued shrieking and freaking out and my mom was so confused, trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with me.

Eventually I calmed down (just barely) to let her pick it off of me and flush it down the toilet.

RIP you sucka. (Ticks were a big thing in Massachusetts and everyone was paranoid about them. Not to mention they carry Lyme disease and they are also bugs and automatically bad.☝️)

I had no clue where I picked up the tick. It’s likely that my dog had picked it up and the tick somehow found it’s way to me, but however it found me, I was unaware until the last second and had no clue what to do.

Well, it’s kind of how the devil tries to sneak up on us. He looks around, searching for a wiiiide open door to crawl into, and when we find him at the last second, it’s too late and we have no clue what to do. So we jump around, screaming because we’re too scared to touch him but we need to get him off.

So how can we prevent him from sneaking into our hearts? Here’s a couple things that Jesus used to resist Satan, and how we can follow His example.

1. Read God’s word. When He was tempted in the wilderness, Jesus fought back against Satan’s lies and deceit with God’s word. You’ll learn so much from books like Romans, Proverbs, the four Gospels, and Psalms. (Matthew 4:1-11)
2. Pray. Jesus often took a step back from the world to be by himself to pray and talk to God. (Luke 5:16)
3. Worship and gratitude. Jesus worshipped His father, and it’s good for our minds to practice gratitude instead of complaint, which is what the devil wants us to practice. (Hebrews 12:28)

So yep.

I hope this was helpful! Have a great day. 🙃

~Willow