When I told my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird that I no longer wanted to play football, the old black man, knowing how much I loved the game, knew I was lying. After each preseason practice when we drove home, I described to him everything the team did. When I confessed that my attitude toward the game changed when Coach Ruscoe assigned me to the third team, he said, "Son, Satan has many tools that he uses to prevent the Lord's children from maintaining positive attitudes, but the one he uses the most is discouragement."
"Ain't nothing to dying … once you get the hang of it"
Ironically, Jaybird sometimes used discouragement as part of a teaching technique that never failed to work because it indelibly imprinted lessons in my mind. One technique involved making confusing comments and not explaining them, causing me to rack my brain, become discouraged, give up, and beg him to explain. In time, he would, but only after he knew the solution I sought would become a permanent part of the guidelines for life he was instilling in me.
A good example involves the time I asked him if he was afraid of dying. "Ain't nothing to dying … once you get the hang of it," he replied.
"Jaybird, that's plain stupid. How can a person get the hang of something he does only once?"
"Ain't nothing to dying … once you get the hang of it," he mumbled again. In time I realized that "the hang of it" results from a person's determination to get the most out of life, day by day.
Whereas Satan uses discouragement for destructive purposes, Jaybird used it constructively; whereas Satan uses discouragement to foil a person's desire to succeed, Jaybird used it--not to implement hopelessness and surrender, as Satan does--but as an impetus to try even harder to attain worthy goals and, most importantly, to be successful in God's eyes by striving to live according to His will.
As a college teacher, I sometimes utilized a "can't do" ruse to generate a "can do" mentality among students. The strategy involved throwing out a dare in such a way that students rose to the challenge; then I orchestrated their efforts to solve the challenge. If successful, the students learned that they must never let discouragement be a deterrent to overcoming difficulties encountered on the road to achievement--the same lesson Jaybird taught me.
Life is an interminable problem-solving process in which discouragement is a constant stumbling block. The more it is overcome, the less of an impediment it becomes. Experience in defeating the devil's chief tool leads to losses for him and victories for God and His children.
As he knew it would, Jaybird's discouragement strategy strengthened my attitude toward problem solving. Like all lessons the beloved old black man taught me, that one is still as useful as ever in my personal life, as it was in the classroom. I learned from him that discouragement destroys positive attitudes. It is what Jaybird called it: Satan's surest subjugator.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
When I told my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird that I no longer wanted to play football, the old black man, knowing how much I loved the game, knew I was lying. After each preseason practice when we drove home, I described to him everything the team did. When I confessed that my attitude toward the game changed when Coach Ruscoe assigned me to the third team, he said, "Son, Satan has many tools that he uses to prevent the Lord's children from maintaining positive attitudes, but the one he uses the most is discouragement." 
