My God is bigger than your Halloween

Halloween — the day the devil lays claim to. I don’t know about you but I refuse to give any day to the devil. My Bible tells me that God Almighty created the heavens, the earth and all the days in it. So, who is Satan to lay claim on a day … any day? And perhaps even more puzzling, who are we to surrender it to him?

As for me, the enemy’s lie doesn’t give him any ground, because every day is the day that the Lord God made, and I choose to do as Scripture says, I’m going to “rejoice and be glad in it,” (Psalm 118:24) not give allegiance to the devil for attempting to steal it.  

Now I admit, the “I Hate Halloween” perspective is certainly a better received Christian point of view.  It’s sure to rally believers into the fight against evil and I get it, really, I do. We all want to stand against the works of the devil. What I find amazing is that so many Christians give way to fear this time of year. But you say, the pagans claim this is their most celebrated day of the year! It’s evil! Really? Since when do we rely on what pagans say?

Halloween is a melting pot of many different cultural traditions, including some Christian and pagan ones. By all means, we want to avoid all pagan practices such as divination, necromancy and idolatry. Let’s expose the real darkness for what it is, addressing it in the light of Scripture and targeting our prayers on something real and tangible so they can be effective. But let’s not be bullied into huddling inside praying for the morning to come quick so we can be rid of the darkness for another year. That just means you’ve forgotten how truly big our God is. 

You see, I’ll never forget the morning I accepted an invitation to church after being at a Samhain ritual until the wee hours of the morning and believing that nothing would happen because of the power that I possessed from the night before. I encountered God that day — all powerful, all knowing and totally captivating. There I, at the time a witch bowed my head and accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior and I became convinced that “Nothing can separate us from God’s love, not angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present or things to come.” That’s when I realized just how big God is.  

So, what about Halloween? Well, what many pagans don’t tell you is that much of the hype is a mockery against Christians’ over-exaggeration that many of us fall right into. A witch’s Halloween is usually a public event to give the community what they expect. Any real magic is done on the night of Samhain deep in the woods or inside a home closed off to intruders, but I must admit with paganism flourishing online, it seems many now fall into celebrating on Halloween. I can tell you — a Samhain ritual is far from trick-or-treating or indulging in candy.  In light of who God is, Halloween is really very small.

As for me, I’m going to celebrate my rebirth day. It is the day when light triumphed over darkness, good triumphed over evil, and God’s power triumphed over Satan. It’s the day God’s light pierced my evil, dark, hardened heart and set my feet dancing in joy! This is the day the Lord God has made and ain’t no devil going to steal the joy of the Lord from me.