Five-finger exercise

I have purchased piano lessons for my 5-year-old grandson at the local music store. The teacher requires that the parent or guardian be present at the lesson, in order to remember and reinforce the instruction during the coming week. I'm all for it. And it's so very dear to watch a little person whose feet dangle off the sides of a piano bench, hearing for the first time in his life the basics of the construction of the instrument he will come to love and master eventually.

Last week, the first session of actual teaching after the initial consultation meeting, Mr. Dolan pointed out the layout of the keyboard, a visually helpful arrangement of paired black keys to orient him to the C note. He familiarized my grandson with these by having him take fingers No. 2 and 3 (the index and middle digits) and touching every pair, from the top to the bottom of the board, then slipping his thumb (finger #1) down onto the C. All the while, the diminutive student was required to chant:

"Two black keys and C is on the left."

"Two black keys and C is on the left."

This morning I was going about my business, just washing and dressing and nothing more, when a wave of darkness came over me such as Charles Spurgeon surely meant when he spoke of "dungeons under the castle of despair." I can't believe that I used to just endure these moods unchallenged. And the habit has been so entrenched in me that I nearly fell again into the old familiar groove of passive acquiescence.

But then I remembered my five-finger exercise that I am beginning to learn: Speak against attacks of Satan. Speak and don't just think. And I said, aloud: "I will trust in you, Lord."

I don't know everything there is to know about spiritual warfare; I am only a beginner. But grateful am I that the Lord has taught me this very simple thing that I can do, based on Ephesians 6:10-20, and James 4:7.

"Resist the devil and he will flee from you."

"Resist the devil and he will flee from you."

And once you practice that, little child, I will bring you into greater mysteries in our next lesson.