What was he going to do if she didn’t care?
Did it matter? If he warned her, and she didn’t care, then it wasn’t on him anymore. But if he knew the information, and he didn’t share it, that was on him.
“Just because your dad does something doesn’t mean you have to be that way too,” he said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“What do you know about that?”
“My dad died in prison.” His words were a little absent-minded, because he was texting.
Where are you?
“No way.”
“Yeah. I’ve worn the black. The skulls and the crossbones. I’ve done the whole devil thing. And I think it’s a lot more powerful and a lot more dangerous than what we realize. You don’t have to open your mind to the devil for very long before he eagerly accepts the invitation and jumps in. It’s dangerous, far more dangerous than we realize.”
“Oh. Scary,” Rodney said, and while there was a lot of mocking in his tone, Griff could hear a small note of fear.
“In the Bible, when the Archangel Michael contested with the devil about the body of Moses, he didn’t bring an accusation against the devil himself, but he said ‘the Lord rebuke you, Satan.’ That lets us in on a big secret. That the devil is a lot stronger than what we think he is. Even the Archangel Michael won’t mess with him; we definitely shouldn’t either.”
“I’m not messing with the devil. Not really. But at least he’ll take me. No one else seems to want me. I might as well embrace the whole death thing and everything that goes with it.”
“I think we don’t have an accurate view of hell. It’s an eternity of torture and misery. We think we’re going to go down to hell to play poker with our buddies, but that’s not the way it’s going to be.” Griff sighed, impatiently tapping his phone. No text had come back.
“Sure it is. You don’t know. You’ve never been there.”
“The Bible says it’s not. The Bible tells us about a man who was in torment. He was so thirsty he was dying for someone to dip the tip of their finger into some water to cool his tongue. He was begging for that. It’s pain and misery, and you’re not there with your friends. You’re alone. You don’t even know that there are other people there unless you hear them screaming in agony. It’s not a place you want to go. It’s not a place you want to mess with. Satan is the great deceiver. He’s going to convince you that he loves you, but he doesn’t.”
“Nobody does.”
“God does. And that’s one of Satan’s lies to tell you that He doesn’t. That He couldn’t. That something that you’ve done is too bad, or that if your parents don’t love you, God can’t love you either. I’m telling you, Satan lies.”
“How do you know?” Rodney seemed like he was listening, even though he stared belligerently at the lake, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Because the Bible tells us he’s a liar and the father of it. That’s why it’s so terrible when people lie. Instead of being like God, they’re being like Satan. And that helps Satan win.”
“If God is so strong, He could beat Satan Himself.”
“He can. But don’t you like to watch your team win? Does it make you feel good when your team has a victory? If you can do something for God to have a victory, wouldn’t you want to do that? Wouldn’t you want to make Him feel good? But when you do sinful things, you’re giving Satan the victory. You’re making him feel good. You’re letting him have the power to gloat and say something along the lines of, ‘How about that, God? There’s your boy. Look at him, he’s fighting for my team.’ Do you want to allow Satan to do that with you? That he uses your actions to gloat in God’s face about how one of God’s children is playing for the wrong team?”
Griff took a steadying breath. He didn’t typically talk that much, but Rodney was definitely playing fast and loose. He didn’t understand how powerful the spirit world was. Didn’t understand that when a person opened their mind to anything that had to do with that, even if it was music that was played by people who were Satan worshipers, they were opening their mind to things they didn’t understand. It seemed simple and innocent, but that was only because of humans’ limited ability to see. God wouldn’t have warned them so strongly away from witches and necromancers and anything that had to do with people who dealt with the dead, if He hadn’t known for a fact that those things were bad for humans.
He didn’t want to see Rodney go down that path. Griff still had scars from when he had been caught in that world.
“It’s boring to play for the good guys.”
“Don’t you want to play for the winning team?” He didn’t know how else to try to convince Rodney.
“Not really. God allowed my dad to cheat on my mom, to blow up my family.”
“God allowed that? Why aren’t you going to put the blame where it belongs? Satan allowed that. Satan tempted your dad away. Satan lied to your dad and told him that he’d be happier if he were screwing around with some other woman. Satan’s lies are what have blown up your family. God is waiting for you to turn back to Him so He can try to put things back together. He’s waiting for your dad to do the same.”
Lord, help him understand. Help him to see You love him.
Griff prayed, even as he twisted his phone in his hand, flipping it over and over, praying for Chi, asking God to save her from wherever she was and help her to see that she was doing the wrong thing too.
Griff couldn’t do it on his own. He couldn’t fix her, couldn’t save her, couldn’t even get to her because he didn’t know where she was. But God knew.
“Why can’t God just fix everything if He’s so powerful?”