What does evil feel like? It feels icky and ugly. It leaves a residue behind like glue or resin. It sticks to you and leaves you shaken and unwell. It leaves you confused and feeling doubt. The difference between the evils of my youth and the present day evils is that I know what it is now.
I had an incident this morning with two individuals in a conversation. I'm not yet sure if these two people knew each other but they certainly joined forces readily. What came of the conversation left me shaken to the core, ruined my day, and made me so sad. It was a typical conversation that anyone might have of politics and things happening in America that aren't what makes this country great. But they did not agree with my views at all. I'm not surprised and am used to that.
In a nutshell I said that border patrol agents should treat human beings like human beings whether they are illegal immigrants or not. The words I started my statement with were, "abuse by border patrol agents is rampant..." and that was all it took to launch this lady at me like a rocket. I tried desperately and respectfully to reason with her but she seemed to want to dance around the issue of humanitarian respect and tell me how I should do more research and that I was "spouting off." This is a person that had previously called herself my friend and even referred to herself and I as friends when another individual "came to my rescue." Then her friend chimed in on her behalf and it just felt like a complete piranha attack. I tried to keep steering the conversation to the issue of humanitarian respect, but she then accused me of hiding behind that to attack our border patrol agents. Long story short, I eventually saw the devil. It took a few minutes of defending myself and feeling a bit blind-sided but I finally began to see him in this.
So, what does evil feel like? It feels just like the enemy works to make it feel. You feel totally confused during the attack. You can't make sense of what's being said or done to you. You can't wrap your mind around why this individual is so angry at you and unwilling to compromise or be reasonable. You can't understand where this anger is coming from and why it's coming from your "friend" and greater still is the confusion as to why it's aimed at you. But you know one thing for sure...this is not God. God is not in these people. So, I had to make a snap decision and base it on my faith and peace. I had to tell her that I respected her opinion and was going to remain in respect of her opinion, even though it was clear that she didn't care about me, my opinions, my love for human beings (the issue at hand), or whether I gave her respect. She seemed to only soften a bit when my reaction was pleasant but it still didn't shut her down. She was determined to fire off rapidly at me and be as rude and nasty as possible. I was in awe of the evil and darkness. I could have touched it because it was tangible.
I'm not writing this to give the devil glory. I'm writing this to tell you what evil feels like and to share with you that this is my idea of the real world. Every day we may be faced with a choice to be just like that person and mistreat them in retaliation or we can remember from where we came and call on the Lord for grace and show a level of peace, light, and love that can squelch the evil. I carried that with me throughout this day and as you can see, it's still profoundly with me. Evil affects me deeply. I am unable to pretend like it didn't happen or I didn't feel anything. I did feel something. I felt confused, icky, darkness, something I don't want to feel again.
I also felt the hand of God reach into the situation and pull me out. He remained strong within me, gave me grace to speak with, and sent an angel to defend me. God knew right where I was at that moment. My spiritual eyes could see Him hearing my heart's cries. It's like seeing a father at the park with his child and his back to the play area. Imagine him hearing his child get hurt and start crying. Imagine that father spinning around in response to the sound of his child in distress and then bolting over to sweep the child into safety and a loving embrace. That's my God :)
I had an incident this morning with two individuals in a conversation. I'm not yet sure if these two people knew each other but they certainly joined forces readily. What came of the conversation left me shaken to the core, ruined my day, and made me so sad. It was a typical conversation that anyone might have of politics and things happening in America that aren't what makes this country great. But they did not agree with my views at all. I'm not surprised and am used to that.
In a nutshell I said that border patrol agents should treat human beings like human beings whether they are illegal immigrants or not. The words I started my statement with were, "abuse by border patrol agents is rampant..." and that was all it took to launch this lady at me like a rocket. I tried desperately and respectfully to reason with her but she seemed to want to dance around the issue of humanitarian respect and tell me how I should do more research and that I was "spouting off." This is a person that had previously called herself my friend and even referred to herself and I as friends when another individual "came to my rescue." Then her friend chimed in on her behalf and it just felt like a complete piranha attack. I tried to keep steering the conversation to the issue of humanitarian respect, but she then accused me of hiding behind that to attack our border patrol agents. Long story short, I eventually saw the devil. It took a few minutes of defending myself and feeling a bit blind-sided but I finally began to see him in this.
So, what does evil feel like? It feels just like the enemy works to make it feel. You feel totally confused during the attack. You can't make sense of what's being said or done to you. You can't wrap your mind around why this individual is so angry at you and unwilling to compromise or be reasonable. You can't understand where this anger is coming from and why it's coming from your "friend" and greater still is the confusion as to why it's aimed at you. But you know one thing for sure...this is not God. God is not in these people. So, I had to make a snap decision and base it on my faith and peace. I had to tell her that I respected her opinion and was going to remain in respect of her opinion, even though it was clear that she didn't care about me, my opinions, my love for human beings (the issue at hand), or whether I gave her respect. She seemed to only soften a bit when my reaction was pleasant but it still didn't shut her down. She was determined to fire off rapidly at me and be as rude and nasty as possible. I was in awe of the evil and darkness. I could have touched it because it was tangible.
I'm not writing this to give the devil glory. I'm writing this to tell you what evil feels like and to share with you that this is my idea of the real world. Every day we may be faced with a choice to be just like that person and mistreat them in retaliation or we can remember from where we came and call on the Lord for grace and show a level of peace, light, and love that can squelch the evil. I carried that with me throughout this day and as you can see, it's still profoundly with me. Evil affects me deeply. I am unable to pretend like it didn't happen or I didn't feel anything. I did feel something. I felt confused, icky, darkness, something I don't want to feel again.
I also felt the hand of God reach into the situation and pull me out. He remained strong within me, gave me grace to speak with, and sent an angel to defend me. God knew right where I was at that moment. My spiritual eyes could see Him hearing my heart's cries. It's like seeing a father at the park with his child and his back to the play area. Imagine him hearing his child get hurt and start crying. Imagine that father spinning around in response to the sound of his child in distress and then bolting over to sweep the child into safety and a loving embrace. That's my God :)
