The Devil Went Down to Georgia...and Walked Away a Winner.

“The Devil went down to Georgia; he was looking for a soul to steal.”
We’ve all heard the song, an epic folk song of young Johnny outsmarting and outplaying the Devil in a fiddle battle for the ages. The Devil sulks out of Georgia with his pointy tail between his legs and pitchfork dragging, a golden fiddle lighter. It was a pretty easy victory for young Johnny against the greatest deceiver of all time, the Chief Tempter and Ruler of Demons.
The Devil won this fight. There’s no way you can convince me that Lucifer finds himself in need of a soul and tries to win a fiddle fight fair and square. He walks away from that showdown minus a golden fiddle (and does he really miss that golden fiddle) but with Johnny’s soul. Sure, he admits defeat and bows out of the fight, but the Devil’s a trickster. Johnny, knowing that this battle is a sin (“My name’s Johnny and it might be a sin, but I’ll take that bet, you’re gonna regret, cuz I’m the best there’s ever been”) takes on the Devil still. Now, the Devil cannot contract our souls away. We are always one Confession trip away from redemption, which means the Devil has very little power over our souls when we give him very little power. He tricks Johnny though. He enables Johnny to fall deeper into the sins of greed and pride, allowing Johnny to really believe he’s the “best there’s ever been”. If Johnny had lost, the Devil has a tenuous hold on his soul at best. If Johnny wins, Johnny continues to wrap himself up in pride and greed. The Devil walks away knowing he’s continued to trick Johnny into the deadly sins that will eventually lead to winning Johnny’s soul. So what happens when Johnny grows up, settles down, and forgets about the fiddle? Well, it happens in Devil Came Back to Georgia. Johnny wins yet again, and that prideful nature comes back. Plus, the Devil’s fiddle solo (accompanied by his army of demons) is way better (technically and aesthetically) than Johnny’s fiddle solo, as per me and multiple fiddle experts.
So what’s the point, other than demonstrating my ability to overthink everything I come across? This song is a great example of how the Devil works on us, and it’s important to communicate these tactics to those to whom we minister. The Devil tricks us, over time, into sinful behaviors and then oftentimes convinces us there’s no escape. We’ll fight and fight ourselves, overwhelmed with guilt and disgust. Then we’ll start to crawl out of that self-imposed hole of sin, only to find us thrusting ourselves back in.
So many of our youth (and even ourselves) find themselves in this “cycle of Devil trickery”, a phrase I just coined. We stop seeking redemption because we’re convinced we don’t deserve it. The Devil preys on our weaknesses even as Jesus is motioning from the other side, begging us to bring those weaknesses to him. The Devil only has a hold on our soul when we allow him to have a hold on our soul, but he’s convinced us he has a hold on us regardless. We are only one short trip to Confession away from breaking that cycle. Spiritual direction, within or outside the confessional, helps us diagnose and see the cycle, and then gives us practical methods for overcoming whatever sins we struggle with the most and most frequently. This is why it is vital to give those we minister to (youth, our children, our friends, our families, etc.) frequent opportunities and excuses to go to confession. Confession is vital to our Catholic faith and it’s one of the biggest walls young Catholics have to hurdle – but we must encourage them to overcome that fear and uncertainty.
We are most vulnerable and open when we become truly introspective before and during Confession. Frequent Confession allows us and our youth to recognize and overcome the things that hold us/them back from a complete personal relationship with Christ. We cannot allow the Devil to continue to walk away from our battles with a smirk on his face as we comfortably pat ourselves on the back.