Tags
clowns in the asylum, humor, IB, life, negativity, scoffers, toxic people
A man dropped a good word on me once. I was feeling vaguely unsettled, slightly depressed, and tired. Just plain soul weary. I thought, well I probably need anti-depressant and no doubt I’m bipolar, delusional, and likely suffering from a brain tumor, too.
(I’d like to thank the guy who recently gave me the article about the woman who just died from a brain eating amoeba lurking in her neti pot. Thanks dude, that’s precisely the kind of encouragement I need. Sometimes I forget to be a proper hypochondriac.)
So this man and his good word said, “No, there’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just because you’re on the front lines and surrounded by scoffers 24/7. You are under constant attack and got people speaking death over you more than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
Wut??
This is not a pity party, but rather the tale of a major revelation. Until that very moment, my strategy had always been to just ignore it, to not even see it really. It had become so normal, I had just rendered it completely invisible. My solution to dealing with toxic people and their perpetual anxiety, was to just ignore it and focus on the next positive thing. Not a bad strategy, but all that scoffing I had repressed, ignored, was still hanging over me, with all those negative words now hovering in the shadows, just beyond memory
What do you do with things hovering in the shadows? Drag them out into the sun light, kind of like sheets you hang out on a clothes line. They’ll come back in smelling like well, sunshine, if the sun can be said to have a smell. I have no idea how that even works, but trust me, the sun has a smell and it is delicious.
At the time I did not believe in spiritual attacks. Like, enemy, shmeney, I ain’t got no time for that fool. A most inconvenient belief let me tell you, especially when you are confronted with the horrifying truth.
So the idea was to pay attention to the scoffers, to write down the words if necessary, to take note of the number of attacks I was dealing with every day. You can’t just let them sit there, you have rebuke them, every single one, if only in prayer. Oh good grief was that horrifying, and daunting too, because that guy was so right. I was like a magnet for toxic negativity, like I had a target on my back, like a red laser light trained right on me 24/7.
All the best people do.
Most of them were not really coming from enemies either, but rather people I loved, so that made it all the worse. You know how Jesus speaks to Peter, whom he loves dearly, but still, “get ye behind me satan.” I totally get that now.
Sometimes you really do need to drink the whole bottle of vinegar, to get to the vinegar mother, the gelatinous cellulose and acetic acid mass lurking at the bottom. If you don’t know what a vinegar mother is, you haven’t truly lived. Just trust me on that, sometimes you really do need to drink the whole darn bottle to find the truth.
It was a brutal adventure in becoming aware of your surroundings, because in a span of less than ten minutes I was hearing so many negative things I could hardly track them all, like, “are you still going to that stupid church?” And, “where’s your alleged god god now?” Christians are a bunch of idiots. Hope you don’t crash your car. You’ll never make it. Life sucks. God hates us. I wish I were dead. You think too highly of yourself….
Seriously, those words were just pouring from people’s mouths, some of them directed like fiery arrows at me personally and some just the lamentations of suffering people. There were more negative words being poured over me then I could even count.
Don’t even get me started about people’s music always blasting in the background. Nothing quite like, let’s glamorize our ability to steal, kill, and destroy and romantisize it in song. And me just a human pin cushion for fiery darts and all.
It wasn’t all coming from non believers either. Let me tell you, sometimes Christians can be the worse of all, with their fiery darts and little foxes nipping at the grapes. A while back I tried inviting a woman to coffee and she actually said, “well I’ve been talking to some people and they said I shouldn’t because you have Bethel on you.” At bit funny, because at the time I had no idea what Bethel even was. It sounded a bit like a disease, like impetigo, sure to be contagious.
Being the gracious Christian that I am, I promptly thought, Wait girl, are you actually saying your casino hoping, barfly, living with your 3rd boyfriend self, is so concerned about keeping up “Christian appearances,” you’re afraid to have coffee with me?
That’s exactly what she was saying.
Let me tell you, I know what Bethel is now, and we have just doubled down on the Bethel. Now I ooze Bethel, and you better be careful because it is indeed highly contagious and before you know it, you’ll be just delighting in praise and worship songs and talking endlessly about the Lord’s “Reckless Love.” Horrifying, I know.
But this tale actually began with a good man who once dropped a good word on me, take note of it, don’t ignore it, don’t inhale it, and just breathe it out. I’m telling you, some days there is more heavy breathing going on then in a labor and delivery room, but I’m grateful for that man who taught me how to breathe.
Mel Wild said:
LOL! You crack me up, IB. I loved every part of this post.
“Sometimes you really do need to drink the whole bottle of vinegar, to get to the vinegar mother, the gelatinous cellulose and acetic acid mass lurking at the bottom.”
Yes, especially the mother! 🙂 Vinegar is a great cleanser and detoxifier….against both the angry skeptics and especially the pointy-headed religious fear-mongers.
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Sophia's Children said:
An lol to you, IB. “Brain eating amoeba lurking in her neti pot” … yes, we have to know about that! 🙂 I had no idea what the young woman meant by “you have Bethel on you” means (obviously she wasn’t talking about the “judge not lest ye be judged” and the thing about the eyeball beam, but whatever). When I did a quick search, it seemed like having Bethel on you might have been an unintended compliment. In any case, thanks for sharing. The fiery darts are plentiful, and the fellow’s advice was wise.
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Sophia's Children said:
(for some reason this posted before I was finished the one below. feel free to delete this one, IB!)
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Salvageable said:
My mother used to hang the sheets in the sun instead of putting them through the drier (if the weather allowed). I know what you mean about the scent of sunshine.
As for having Bethel on you, that sounds like a compliment to me. What could be better than being associated with the house of God? J.
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Julie (aka Cookie) said:
I’m a huge believer in Spiritual warfare IB and the notion the more “right” you are and the stronger you work to speak Truth, “that fool” works even harder to disrupt your world— beware those zombie bacteria hiding in a neti pot 🤧😷😜😇
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R said:
I’ve been trying to figure out the meaning of “having Bethel on you” with little success, found lots of other uses, to one group it means different things than to another, context can be everything! Oh well, it’s been interesting,,,,
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iamcurmudgeon said:
there are four seasons of Monty Python’s Flying Circus tv shows on Netflix. Good medicine when I start getting too serious. To think that a blancmange is a real thing! Just be grateful you don’t have to eat British “cuisine”. If this reply makes no sense, tune in.
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Denine said:
Best words every spoken to me, “it’s not you.”
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Citizen Tom said:
@IB
Have Bethel on you? That had to be confusing. Some “Christians” are so ignorant it is scary sad (see Hebrews 5:11-14).
We can get full of ourselves and put on airs. We can insult others, others who don’t meet our high and lofty standard. Yet it is God’s standard we must meet, and no one does that without Jesus Christ. When we put down others, we demonstrate our pride and our ignorance. Ignorance. What is Christian about degrading others? Such a “Christian” must know little of the Bible. If we are foolish enough to refer to the Bible to insult another Christian, how likely is it we would compliment those we intend to insult? At our hands, we may cause our victim to suffer for Christ, whereas there is no chance that in our pride we would suffer for anyone’s sake save our own.
My guess is that foolish lady was trying to accuse you of some sort of hersy, and she copied someone else’s insult, not knowing the meaning of Bethel. I suppose her insult could be related to 2 Kings 2:23, but it seem more likely it comes from 1 Kings 12:25-33.
Anyway, use that vinegar sparingly. Leave some for that lady to drink instead of coffee.
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ColorStorm said:
Where did I read that ‘a mans enemies will be those of his own house.’ Ahem, the household of faith got plenty of Capone’s, not even to mention the godless scoffers, so yeah, you can’t avoid the hits which keep on coming.
I suppose the only way to avoid the stuff is to not have a testimony, and preach to the choir in safety, or as Paul said: ‘to go out of the world ‘ through the portal of death.
We all have targets in our backs, some are painted with more red, that’s all. Lol
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patrickhawthorne01 said:
Weee doggie. You crack me up.
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