Two experiences that came out of this past week helped me to define it further. Ahh.. because God always works through experiences to grow and strengthen us.
The first experience was a call I received from someone I love. She was sharing with me the heartbreaking story of being backstabbed by someone she considered a “friend.” She would tell me that this person, who is relatively new to her life, shared some distressing news with her concerning a mutual friend to both of them, that included some damaging words spoken directly about her. For some reason this person felt the need to tell her and of course it caused an unnecessary amount of pain and discontent.
The second experience was a bit more personal in nature. It came to me in the form of discouragement I was feeling over a public matter within the Christian community. Sadly my initial response was to contact someone I know who publicly supports the individual I felt had made a grievous error in judgement, and complain about the disturbing effects they were having on the reputation of Jesus.
That was until He spoke directly to my heart on the matter. And as He often does in His grace AND patience, pierced my very soul, returning me to this topic of living reactionary to the evil around us.
And I would repeat is again and again in my prayer time: Jesus - we HAVE to get better. I HAVE to get better.
Scripture tells us this, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
And I believe that the enemy uses these negative experiences in our lives to get us to a place where we are so distracted by them that we become utterly debilitated by them and remain buried by evil itself. It’s a downward spiral.
I’ve been working HARD in my own life to disengage not only from the experience with evil of any kind, but from giving it so much as even a fragment of space within my mouth. Matthew 15:18 says it best, that it is, “…the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you.”
It’s not about the negativity that we are experiencing that defines us - it’s our response and our reaction to it that’s destroying us.
I see it all around me. And often within me.
We emphasize evil more than we realize by allowing ourselves to live unhinged and agitated by what’s happening around us. We unnecessarily invite the evil we claim to be attempting to remove from our lives.
We say things like:
“I can’t see a way out of this situation!”
“I can’t believe what they’re doing!”
“This is just terrible!”
“My pain is getting worse!”
“Of course this is happening! This would happen to me!”
“It’s just not fair!”
“I don’t believe what she just said!”
Don’t even allow yourself to SAY these things out loud. Because once you’ve given permission for it to escape your lips, you’ve given legal access for it to dominate and dismantle your spiritual advancement.
And we’ve got to get better.
One of my best friends says it this way, “I won’t even give him (satan) the privilege of acknowledgment.”
Listen, friends, regardless of who has political power and authority - Jesus is still in control.
Regardless of your disappointment in people - Jesus is still in control.
Regardless of your current condition physically or mentally - Jesus is still in control.
And we must decide what world we are going to live more aware of - this one or Heaven.
We must decide who we’re going to live more conscious of - the enemy or Jesus.
And then we must be absolutely radical about our vigilance over our words and our ways.
Read the Gospels. Unpack the history of Jesus here on earth.
How did He do it?
What did He say?
What did He do?
How did He respond?
Jesus would renounce evil of any kind, refusing to allow it to consume His mind and confuse His assignment. “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” Matthew 16:23
Let’s get better. Let’s stop living reactionary to negativity, hate, disappointment, failure, and evil of any kind.
It maters more than we know!
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