A friend of mine recently said that the Devil only goes after what is strong. I have to disagree. I think the devil is a bit of a wuss and waits for people to be at their weakest before he slithers in and makes his move.
Now I don't know what kind of mood Adam and Eve were in when he presented the apple, but the devil did wait until Jesus was alone in the desert and that was still an epic fail. Even with humans, he doesn't always get the timing right.
Case in point, Johnny. The fiddle playing master of Charlie Daniel's song. My friend could definitely use this song as an argument to her statement. The devil knew what he was going into when he made the bet. He had already seen Johnny play and knew that he was good. Johnny didn't know what kind of skills that the devil had and was taking a risk making the bet. OR Johnny was so confident in his skills that he knew there was no way he was going to lose.
Times were obviously tough for the devil when he went to Georgia. The song states he was way behind in soul stealing. Now if the devil had any business smarts, he would have known that a young man playing a fiddle hot was not the ideal one to make a deal with. But no one ever said the devil was smart.
So Johnny thinks that he may be sinning by taking this bet, but I wonder? If he knew he couldn't lose because he knew his God given talents were better than the devil's devil given talents, is it a sin? Was he cocky or confident? Was he just putting the devil in his place like we all should do or was he showing off? These are real questions that need real answers.
Maybe Johnny is a little cocky. Maybe as he ages, that will settle down in him and he will be a little more humble. But then again, he just kicked the devil's ass in a fiddle playing contest, he has every right to be cocky. I would.
For a long time, I felt that the devil had a better song, but it was the band of demons that really rounded out his sound. I had a long (drunken) conversation about this song one night and was shown the error of my thinking. If the band of demons did not join in, I would have been able to hear that Johnny was clearly a superior fiddle player, just as the devil stated.
What if more of us were like the live concert version of Johnny. You know the one that says "I told you once, you son of a bitch, I'm the best there's ever been." I don't think we even have to claim to be the best, but we do need to claim that enough evil is enough. What if we just got fed up with him and his band and schooled him on a little kindness and forgiveness and tolerance?
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