Eph 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
When I was a police officer years ago, I had little difficulty dealing with evil. Oh, sure, criminals and crooks lied and deceived but I could generally tell when someone was lying to me – at least with your average lawbreaker. And I had confidence in my ability to do so. The criminals were the enemy and I knew it. The thing was plain. On occasion I detected that a supposed “victim” of an armed robbery was actually lying, having invented the alleged robbery to cover the fact that he himself had stolen from his employer. Another time I knew that a lady was lying when she reported that someone had stolen her diamond ring from her car when she went inside the store.
But then I became a pastor. Now the thing was not nearly so clear cut. The enemy was, as they say, within. That is, within the congregation I shepherded. Liars. Hypocrites. RASNs in so many cases as we call them. And guess what happened? My confidence weakened. Clarity became foggier. This was a new kind of enemy and it was much, much more difficult because in fact, I really didn’t recognize the enemy as the enemy.
And this is what I want to point out to you in this post. I hope it will be encouraging to you. Your RASN (reviler, abuser, sociopath, narcissist) wears a disguise. So that he/she does not look like what he really is. You start to see a red flag, then you end up blaming yourself for thinking such a thing. The confusion starts. The doubts, the self-blaming, the wrong diagnoses….
Why? The Scripture quoted above has the answer. Because I was then in a different kind of warfare. A spiritual warfare. Principalities and powers whose master is the author of lies. This was a whole new battlefield than the one I fought against flesh and blood. And NO ONE had prepared me for it.
When you are in a relationship with a RASN, you are dealing with someone who has the spiritual DNA of Satan. They tell the same lies. They make the same accusations. They wield the same tactics and weapons. That is why you get drawn in. It isn’t because you are stupid. It is because you haven’t been trained to recognize the enemy and to be wise in the ability to understand what bullets are being fired at you.
One fundamental truth that I had to learn is that not all Christians…are. That is to say, only a minority of people who claim to be Christians are truly born again, and some of these kind are willful hypocrites…wolves in wool as we call them. Prowlers prowling around looking for a victim.
Only by being in Christ, by being indwelt and led by the Holy Spirit, can you start seeing the truth. Christ opens our eyes and ears to what is truth and what is the devil’s lies. Without knowing Christ, you cannot truly even understand the Bible. You can read it and read it, but you will never “see” what God is really saying. And as a result, apart from Christ being in you, you can read a verse like the one quoted above, read it even 100 times….but you will never really get it.
So if you were duped by a RASN, don’t go too hard on yourself for being some kind of fool – your RASN will tell you that without you helping him. Just understand that this spiritual evil contains within its essence – a blinding, mind-boggling fog that is intended to keep its target from understanding what it really is.
hurt one
…and it takes time and hard work in God’s word to see the mind-boggling fog, try to understand and cope with this and recover from it. I specifically had to give myself grace and forgive myself, which was very hard to do.
Cordelia
I was married to an abuser; he was and still is a total monster and now I work with one, only this time the abuser is a woman.
She spent 3 weeks being pleasant, after being newly hired, then the devaluing started. She picked me as her target. She asked a personal question of me, about my Mom; when I answered with high praises for my Mom (a devote follower of Christ)
the abuser tore into me with a vicious, voice of disgust, “THAT’S ENOUGH!!!”. I was in so much shock I retreated to my office. She swore at me and pushed me, mocks a medical condition I have, pokes her nose into my personal life, asks for help with work projects then speaks ugly to me, when no one is within earshot of it, drives wedges, between me and the other employees with her vicious lies and there’s so much more.
I was so upset with God initially and asked in anguish, “God I know you provided this tailor made job for me, so WHY are you allowing me to be abused again?! I’ve been through SO MUCH over all these years.” Recently, I received an answer. It was while watching videos on abusers/narcissists in the workplace. The speaker counsels to stop retreating, but rather “learn to put some teeth into your response” to their ugly behavior enough that they know you’re a force to be reckoned with, but not to cause harm and do not return evil for evil. My whole life–family, “friends”, coworkers, etc… have and continue to say and do horrible things to me; I never fought back. God is teaching me to stop fearing man[kind] and start addressing matters when the ugly *begins.* Having self-respect is God-honoring.
I know almost the entire office does not like this female bully, but every last one of them bows to her in one form or another. It’s quite a site to see. They are too blind to see, if I wasn’t around to be picked on, it would be one of them.
I no longer give people the benefit of the doubt and believe most are decent human beings. I believe everyone is rotten to the core, until they prove they truly are Christians with consistent God honoring lives in public and especially at home. Just ask their children; they tell like it is.