so easy to discern, while you are discerning...the path is dark. The motives and intents are not clear. It's about as clear as mud. You ask a question. You get a snarky reply. It shuts you down so you are afraid to ask a question. If you react in this manner, you don't grow...so now you ask questions only to be told you think too much and assume too much.
Or, you go happily through life and along comes somebody with the intent to spitefully use you. They take advantage of your good nature. You are the type of person who doesn't mind wanting to help someone. Meanwhile, "Someone" has their own agenda and you are the pawn they see themselves advancing their agenda with...Oy, Have I ever repeated this one too many times? On the wrong side and as the pawn - Lord, please help me to see clearly and how you would have me respond.
So then you become the paranoid person who is raving mad at the world and decide "No one is ever going to take advantage of me again!" Ummmm, yea, how did that one turn out? Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. It doesn't work. Now, I am having to claw my way out of the pit of despair and anger and, and, and .... LOVE MY NEIGHBOR!
Why do we humans do this to one another? Most especially why do we Christian humans allow these tactics whether motivated from the flesh or from our enemy, Satan, to rule and reign in our lives. Why is it so hard to just 'love' our neighbor. To love those who spitefully use you. To love those who rub you the wrong way...when you know it, you messed up. You bragged and should have kept your mouth shut. But most especially when you were mean to someone, and now that they are kicking back, you dare to get outraged and decide to put them in their place when you were the one that was out of place in the first place.
My hubby posted a prayer on our wall by Jennifer LeClaire from Charisma magazine. It was a prayer for spiritual warfare and it was asking the Lord to burn out all the game playing, the manipulations, the shenanigans...Lord, please burn it out of us. We are so tired of the game playing. Could we just lay aside all of our faults, all of our motives, all of our agendas, and just start looking at the other person and try to help them to do better? Let's take off the masks. Get real with one another with the church body as a whole, not just our little cliques...
Angry people kicking back are people who have been hurt and felt not acknowledged or accepted. They are responding because they feel no one cares. No, you don't have to pay someone to teach you to do this either. Just pick up your Bible, read it, and then start doing what it says you can do and don't do what it tells you not to do. It really is that easy...and then maybe, the mud will clear and the discernment will come for what is the next step. In the mean time, I have learned you really cannot help someone. They have to learn to help themselves. And that is hard for me as the happy, go through life person I am and not be a pawn in the enemy's game plan. Lord Jesus, I need you now more than ever. Please teach me, guide me, lead me to what you would have me to learn, and what you would have me to do. Amen...
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