It was a drawing portraying a worn, weary, burdened Jesus out in the barren desert; weak with hunger, mercilessly tempted by the enemy of souls. The Biblical account, found in Luke chapter 4, brings to life the intensity of the no holds barred struggle. We, of course, identify and resonate in our humanity to the areas of temptation, and as if we were watching a Gospel thriller we cheer every move and brave response of the battered but unyielding hero.

With joy, we celebrate the victory of the Master and the fact the devil stepped up to the plate three times and, in the language of baseball, struck out! As I left the scriptural narrative with a sharpened sensitivity to the devices and deceits of the enemy, as well as the secret of successful overcoming by the word, I did so not quite alert to the ominous import of the sentence that follows hard on the heels of the magnificent overcoming. In the 13th verse of Luke 4: “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time,” or, departed with a resolution to attack him again.

It’s as if the enemy leaves muttering, “Regardless of what happened this time, it’s not over. This is not the end of it. The battle is still on!” That phrase, “a more opportune time,” and its disturbing truth began to consume my mind. An opportune time for the enemy is a vulnerable time for us, a time when situation and circumstance enhance the likelihood of his success.

And as David Jeremias reminds us, “Why is it opportunity knocks once but it seems like temptation is at my door every day?”

The thought dominated my mind. When is that "more convenient time?” I need to know. Is it when I’m tired, idle, bored, weakened, despondent? From the perspective I had in my youthful days, surely that convenient time for him is when we have failed or been defeated. The time when everything has gone wrong, everything going downhill, you just ahead of the avalanche, the time when you are on the bottom and the best you can do is barely look up.

Like an embarrassed, humiliated Peter. Dejected, disgusted, lost in his discouragement and defeat. A professional fisherman who toiled all night, and caught nothing.

Or like me, early in my ministry in Terre Haute, Indiana. After a disastrous sermon, my ego was battered by wave after wave of painful doubts that were almost drowning my conviction of call. As I relive it, certainly that can be the enemy's opportune time.

But as I got a little older, and hopefully wiser, I came to recognize, as I'm sure you know, that more convenient time for the enemy rather than a time of defeat can be a time of triumph: when your efforts have succeeded beyond your expectations; when you are at the top of your game; when perceptive people with appreciation for exceptional talent are singing your praises.

As they sang David’s, the giant killer, who learned the hard way, the giants keep coming. For if one comes to lose sight of his entire dependence on God and to trust to his own strength, he is sure to fall.

But then again, maybe an opportune time for the enemy could be when Moses was seemingly forgotten, forlorn and forsaken in the desert for 40 years. The truth is, the eroding ritual of the routine can be difficult and demanding. It's harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul, in the desert of the daily.

I think of Mother Teresa, ministering to those often left by others to die. I think of the press coverage on Mother Teresa's long dark night of the soul, as she wrote with weary familiarity of an arid landscape from which, seemingly, the Deity had disappeared.

Is that the more convenient time? Or is it the senior years, when the reality of age rudely intrudes into your personal fantasyland? When the temporary exuberance of youth has surrendered to the inexorable advance of old age with its cynicism, if not possible disillusionment? When the fumes of yesterday’s zeal and vision may be all that is left in an empty spiritual tank?

As I sort through all that, I arrive at the inescapable conclusion, to know that opportune time might be helpful, but what you and I really need to know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, is not the “when.” The focus of our attention ought to be, whenever the enemy’s opportune time—despondency, sickness, failure, waning stages of life, whenever—the victorious Savior is there.

There, as with Peter in his failure. “Launch out into the deep and try it again.“ There, as with a fallen David who, awed by God's mercy and forgiveness, wrote in Psalm 32, “Happy is the person whose sins are forgiven, whose wrongs are pardoned.” There, as with Moses, when the Divine disrupted the desert of the daily, inviting him to a Holy Ground experience.

The victorious Savior is there, as with you and me, in the words of Carol Cymbala:

When my strength was all gone,
When my heart had no song,
Still in love he's proved faithful to me.
When my heart looked away,
The many times I could not pray,
Still my God was faithful to me.
Every word he's promised is true,
What I thought was impossible,
I've seen my God do.

He's been faithful, faithful to me.
Looking back his love and mercy I see,
Though in my heart I have questioned,
And failed to believe,
He's been faithful, faithful to me.

Conversation with Benjamin Reaves

Lydia Talbot: Benjamin Reaves, what a joy to have you back today! A year ago when you were with us, you were suffering from paralysis of the left vocal cord.

Ben Reaves: That is correct.

Lydia Talbot: That can impact your heart. You have experienced the enemy knocking at your door everyday, as you say.

Ben Reaves: Yes.

Lydia Talbot: How has that beautiful spirit in the gospel hymn by Carol Cymbala that you closed your message—God is faithful to you and to all of us—sustained you in your darkest moments of fear?

Ben Reaves: It’s been everything. It’s been the rock floor, the foundation that does not move, does not shake. It’s the arms that embrace me and comfort me during those nights and times of sleeplessness, when you wonder if sleep will come and you wonder what tomorrow will bring. It’s that kind of love and the assurance he has been and will be faithful.

Lydia Talbot: The hymn is really an assurance, isn’t it?

Ben Reaves: Oh, absolutely.

Lillian Daniel: I was curious, a lot of times in our society we think of temptation as being rooted in the thing that is tempting us, like I’m tempted to eat that chocolate cake. But you referred consistently to the enemy tempting us. Could you say a little bit more about who the enemy is and what you mean by that?

Ben Reaves: Absolutely. I believe that there are forces for good and forces for evil. I believe the enemy, sometimes referred to as Satan or the Devil, represents that force for evil and represents a committed intent to destroy. The temptation is always to destroy. God may test us in order to prove or reveal, but God does not tempt us to destroy us. The enemy does. I believe that.

Lydia Talbot: Ben, you touched on personal enemies: sickness, despondency, fear, waning stages of life. What about the social justice kinds of enemies against the notion of distributive justice and peace making in our culture? What about those kinds of enemies?

Ben Reaves: Those enemies are very real and, I believe, those enemies find strength and support from the enemy that I referenced. And I believe it is our job, our duty, our privilege, our opportunity, by God’s grace and his strength, to engage those enemies. We carry a burden of responsibility that we need to meet.

Lillian Daniel: I want to take you back to the story you told about being a young minister in Terre Haute and giving what you thought was a terrible sermon and how the enemy was tempting you then. I wondered, what were you tempted by? What was happening in that moment?

Ben Reaves: I think what was happening at that moment was a reality check. I had not been that long out of seminary. In seminary I was very successful. I got the only A in the homiletics class and I had a sense of assurance that was ill founded. And I think there were a couple of things going on there. I think God used that opportunity to help bring me to my sense of reality. But I think the enemy also saw an opportunity to maybe shake me loose from the conviction that God had called me.

Lydia Talbot: Now, you were just in your twenties then, isn’t that right? You were a young man

Ben Reaves: Yes. A young man, gonna change the world, turn everything upside down! All people needed was to hear me!

Lydia Talbot: And you saw that sermon as a failure. Why really? I mean, was it really a defeat?

Ben Reaves: It was not a defeat. It was a failure because of the so-called standard that I had set up for myself and the misunderstanding of what a sermon is. A sermon is not proof of my ability to do this or that, it is the word of God being shared by a traveler with other travelers. But I didn’t know that then!

Lydia Talbot: You also say that the enemy, temptation, knocks on our door in moments of triumph. What have been those moments for you personally?

Ben Reaves: When you begin to believe your press clippings you get beside yourself. I can remember at Andrews University when I was campus pastor for college youth, a little note someone sent me after a sermon. The note said: “Your reputation for excellence is well deserved.” I’m ashamed to admit how much I enjoyed that note! And that note did not serve me well because I was still trying to get my head around: this is God’s business; this is not about you, Reaves!

Lillian Daniel: Ben, I’m interested in the work you currently do in the health care field and how your ministry has taken you in that direction. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about what are some of the temptations that get us into real trouble with our physical health as well as our spiritual health.

Ben Reaves: Well, with our physical health some of the temptations may be chocolate and a few other various and sundry things! But also not being willing to set boundaries for ourselves, feeling as if somehow we are indispensable, we are the only one who can do things, we’re the only ones who can travel here and take care of that. All of those things can wear on and impact our health. But as far as Adventist Health System is concerned, part of my responsibility is enhancing, lifting up the priority and reviewing mission and the fulfillment of mission in, as we say, following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.

Lydia Talbot: Ben, in our closing moment, I want to get back to that wonderful hymn that God is faithful to us. We usually think of being faithful to God. What do you say for the non-believer or those who lose their faith? They say they’ve lost their faith when something very bad happens. What kind of assurance can you give to that kind of thinking?

Ben Reaves: I can give the assurance of my personal experience that as they have experienced loss, I have experienced loss. But then I can also share with them what has been a comfort to me without suggesting that this may necessarily be received by them. But as someone who has experienced loss, this is what carried me through.

Lydia Talbot: Thank you, Ben.