I got whacked last night.
It was ugly, involving shouting at 2am in the morning, being threatened with legal action and me eventually calling the police to intervene. Even right now I am still feeling the shame, what will the neighbors think? The police being called to salvage a situation at the house from which the neighbors continually hear the praises of God?
The reason my wife allowed one of the whackers in my home at that unearthly hour in the first place is because the whackers are a couple who have helped my wife and I before a lot in the past. Over time I have been actively discouraging my wife from accepting help from them, because they are people whose help comes with strings attached.
In other words, if you accept their help, you OWE them.
Big time.
The Bible has described such people before in Proverbs 23:6-8 (NKJV)
Do not eat the bread of a miser, nor desire his delicacies;
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
"Eat and drink!" he says to you,
But his heart is not with you.
The morsel you have eaten, you will vomit up,
And waste your pleasant words.
The last line is especially appropriate, about vomiting the morsel you have eaten. It seems that this couple has kept the receipts of the 'help' they've given us, and because I refused to sit down and accept being blasted by them for no good reason, they intend to sue for the return of all those sums.
Meet such people regularly? I hope you don't.
Though you do occasionally meet people who have so effectively deadened their consciences so that they can do such things easily and with impunity (they are criminals, the only question is whether they have been caught yet), many people still feel some internal restraint against attacking others to such an extent.
So what do you do if you want to victimize someone but don't have the guts to do it yet? You look for reasons to pull the trigger, to plunge in the knife, to justify your own crime. And the most common way to do that is to find excuses to call that other guy a bigger criminal than you are, that you are the Robin Hood, the noble vigilante who gets your hands dirty only for the sake of protecting the innocent.
And as one of the whackers stood in my own living room, shouting away at me, threatening to whack me both in the court of law and by her friends in high places (?) I discovered why this whacker has so totally de-humanized me and taken me as the ultimate epitome of evil and irresponsibility, fit for nothing else other than disgrace and destruction.
My wife's been complaining to her about me for the past four years.
In techie terms the whacker was kept on an RSS feed of my mistakes, blunders and bad points (yeah, I DO have them). And that emboldened her to whack me at my own home with vulgarities too crass to mention, as well as threats and what not.
Now before anyone places all the blame on my wife, you've got to remember that people will hear what they want to hear, and this whacker was already primed to look for my inadequacies and failures.
So when you put together the continual feed of my mistakes and all that, already slanted to present me in a bad light, with a receptive audience who WANTS to see me in a bad light, it was only a matter of time before the blow up happened.
And when I was struck with the unfairness of the whole thing, I started becoming like my whackers. How does someone become like one of those people mentioned in Proverbs 23?
It is revealed for us in the NIV translation of this passage:
Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies; for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost. (Proverbs 23:6, NIV)
I started thinking about the things I did right for my family and wife, and started thinking about how much they cost me in terms of time, effort and money. All the stuff that got conveniently left out of her RSS feed about life with JJ. I started thinking about how ungrateful my wife was (wouldn't my whackers be thinking exactly the same thing about me?) and began entertaining thoughts of ending all my extra efforts and seeing how the family would cope without me.
I think it's obvious that if God didn't suddenly stop me and reveal to me what was happening, I would have become exactly like those who whacked me. *Shudder*
And THAT's what I'd like to share with you in this post.
You see, when it comes to serving God's people (whether they are in our immediate family or otherwise) Jesus doesn't want us to be thinking about the cost. It cost us nothing.
And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. (Matthew 10:7-8, NKJV)
And when you can truly see that you have received all things freely from God, you free yourself from the need to guard and protect yourself from being taken advantage of as you give of your abilities and giftings to the Body of Christ.
As for me, I've just recently decided to up the ante for my work. I've added on Weekly Worship Ministry Devotional emails, you can sign up for them here. These are of a different writing style compared to my private lessons, my usual blogposts and other teaching articles. And I am excited at adding this new free feature to my teaching materials and making them available to you.
But in the midst of all that I am painfully aware of my personal weakness and need for prayer support from the rest of the Body of Christ. So this is both teaching (sharing on the Book of Proverbs) and an appeal to you to pray for me. Pray especially that I:
1) Walk in forgiveness, as our Lord would have us do;
2) Walk in wisdom, that I may know what to do
3) Walk in protection, that I may leave no room for the ungodly to take advantage of me.
Thanks! Be blessed!
It was ugly, involving shouting at 2am in the morning, being threatened with legal action and me eventually calling the police to intervene. Even right now I am still feeling the shame, what will the neighbors think? The police being called to salvage a situation at the house from which the neighbors continually hear the praises of God?
The reason my wife allowed one of the whackers in my home at that unearthly hour in the first place is because the whackers are a couple who have helped my wife and I before a lot in the past. Over time I have been actively discouraging my wife from accepting help from them, because they are people whose help comes with strings attached.
In other words, if you accept their help, you OWE them.
Big time.
The Bible has described such people before in Proverbs 23:6-8 (NKJV)
Do not eat the bread of a miser, nor desire his delicacies;
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
"Eat and drink!" he says to you,
But his heart is not with you.
The morsel you have eaten, you will vomit up,
And waste your pleasant words.
The last line is especially appropriate, about vomiting the morsel you have eaten. It seems that this couple has kept the receipts of the 'help' they've given us, and because I refused to sit down and accept being blasted by them for no good reason, they intend to sue for the return of all those sums.
Meet such people regularly? I hope you don't.
Though you do occasionally meet people who have so effectively deadened their consciences so that they can do such things easily and with impunity (they are criminals, the only question is whether they have been caught yet), many people still feel some internal restraint against attacking others to such an extent.
So what do you do if you want to victimize someone but don't have the guts to do it yet? You look for reasons to pull the trigger, to plunge in the knife, to justify your own crime. And the most common way to do that is to find excuses to call that other guy a bigger criminal than you are, that you are the Robin Hood, the noble vigilante who gets your hands dirty only for the sake of protecting the innocent.
And as one of the whackers stood in my own living room, shouting away at me, threatening to whack me both in the court of law and by her friends in high places (?) I discovered why this whacker has so totally de-humanized me and taken me as the ultimate epitome of evil and irresponsibility, fit for nothing else other than disgrace and destruction.
My wife's been complaining to her about me for the past four years.
In techie terms the whacker was kept on an RSS feed of my mistakes, blunders and bad points (yeah, I DO have them). And that emboldened her to whack me at my own home with vulgarities too crass to mention, as well as threats and what not.
Now before anyone places all the blame on my wife, you've got to remember that people will hear what they want to hear, and this whacker was already primed to look for my inadequacies and failures.
So when you put together the continual feed of my mistakes and all that, already slanted to present me in a bad light, with a receptive audience who WANTS to see me in a bad light, it was only a matter of time before the blow up happened.
And when I was struck with the unfairness of the whole thing, I started becoming like my whackers. How does someone become like one of those people mentioned in Proverbs 23?
It is revealed for us in the NIV translation of this passage:
Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies; for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost. (Proverbs 23:6, NIV)
I started thinking about the things I did right for my family and wife, and started thinking about how much they cost me in terms of time, effort and money. All the stuff that got conveniently left out of her RSS feed about life with JJ. I started thinking about how ungrateful my wife was (wouldn't my whackers be thinking exactly the same thing about me?) and began entertaining thoughts of ending all my extra efforts and seeing how the family would cope without me.
I think it's obvious that if God didn't suddenly stop me and reveal to me what was happening, I would have become exactly like those who whacked me. *Shudder*
And THAT's what I'd like to share with you in this post.
You see, when it comes to serving God's people (whether they are in our immediate family or otherwise) Jesus doesn't want us to be thinking about the cost. It cost us nothing.
And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. (Matthew 10:7-8, NKJV)
And when you can truly see that you have received all things freely from God, you free yourself from the need to guard and protect yourself from being taken advantage of as you give of your abilities and giftings to the Body of Christ.
As for me, I've just recently decided to up the ante for my work. I've added on Weekly Worship Ministry Devotional emails, you can sign up for them here. These are of a different writing style compared to my private lessons, my usual blogposts and other teaching articles. And I am excited at adding this new free feature to my teaching materials and making them available to you.
But in the midst of all that I am painfully aware of my personal weakness and need for prayer support from the rest of the Body of Christ. So this is both teaching (sharing on the Book of Proverbs) and an appeal to you to pray for me. Pray especially that I:
1) Walk in forgiveness, as our Lord would have us do;
2) Walk in wisdom, that I may know what to do
3) Walk in protection, that I may leave no room for the ungodly to take advantage of me.
Thanks! Be blessed!
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