Vicious People

There have been some vicious people in the world.  Vicious people have killed millions I i  of people and destroyed nations. People can be vicious, especially church folks. 

There was a tall frail lady in one of our churches that always had to comment on my size when I made a church visit.  I know that I am larger than the average person, especially tall frail ladies.  After about the third or fourth time, or it could have been on a Sunday that I really did not want to accept insults, I smarted back to her.  She said, “You are too big, you need to lose weight.”  For a minute, I thought I was at the doctor’s office.  He always says that I need to lose weight.

I smarted back to her by saying, “Listen you remind me of my Honda Civic with a little four-cylinder engine.  It is cheap on gas, but I am like the big eight-cylinder in my pickup oioh ok I’m sorry but pop l BC job.  I am bigger and stronger than you are and I require more fuel to get around than you do.

When I have lost weight, there are those vicious little ladies, both church and extended family that crush our spirits.  I am feeling proud to have lost fifteen pounds and they say, “Whew, you shore have gotten fat.”  Us fat people got feelings!

As long as we go along and contribute to their fulfillment and pleasure, they tolerate us.  Watch out if you get in their way.  I try to know God’s love and purpose.  Without that assurance, facing vicious people can be a hopeless and terrifying experience.

It has been a long time but I received a vicious letter.  No, it was not directed at me, but to me.  I learned a long time ago to see who sent or wrote the letter before I read it.  A preacher friend told me a long time ago that upon receiving vicious mail, check to see who wrote the letter.  If it is not signed, tear it up immediately.  He said you won’t have the temptation to read it if you destroy it.  His reasoning was that if the perpetrator was a coward if he or she did not sign it.  He said if a letter is not signed, I do not read it.  I have lived by that principle for years.

Seeing that the letter and packet of material was defamatory to the character of a co-laborer in Christ and was not signed, I promptly sealed the package and disposed of it.  I had a pretty good feeling who sent it and what they were trying to do the ministry of a Godly man.

As the devil would have it, I was in revival the week I penned the article.  After preaching Monday night, I received a card in the mail.  I noticed that there was no return address and a note on the back of the envelope.  It was an odd message, but I got the jest of it.  It said I need to preach Jesus.  The title of Monday night’s message is “A Pink Note from God” from Psalm 46.  It is a personal testimony of God presence in one of the darkest hours of my life.  It was when our house burned in 2012.

Monday night I received some of the best compliments for the same sermon that I have ever received.

The front of the card had “A Note from, the words had been marked out with a black marker, God above the black mark, and “Pink” placed with an arrow between “A Note.”

Inside the card was a bunch of Scripture verses.  I looked for a signature, finding none I tore the card into little bitty pieces.  Shoot! The whole sermon was about God being our refuge, our strength, and very present in times of trouble.

However, the damage had been done.  Whoever penned the note was vicious.  Satan and his vicious agent were trying to stop revival.  My first thought was I would like to punch Satan’s agent right in the mouth, but I figured it was a little old lady.  I am a pastor I gotta have thick skin.  Then I thought, and I felt sorry for the one that Satan used.  I think in his or her feeble mind that they were being an agent of light, not darkness.

 

Dr. Andy Westmoreland, former president of Samford University makes these suggestions for dealing with vicious people.

 

Boldly Resist:  Then answered one of the lawyers, and said unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproaches us also.  And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. Luke 11:45-46

 

Negotiate:  Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.  Matthew 5:25

 

Turn the other cheek: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matthew 5:38

 

Since I did not know the vicious person, I turned the other cheek.  It still stings a little bit!

The defamation of my so called pastor friend that I destroyed, turned on me years later.  Turned out he was vivious toward me himself.  I turned the other cheek and it stung too. 

STUMBLING THROUGH LIFE

As I experienced a growth spurt in my early teens, I became a maladroit athlete. Another word for maladroit is clumsy. I learned how to stumble without serious injury by learning to hit and roll. In fact, I made it an art, which was a great attribute to possess—being a practice dummy for the senior high football team that kicked and knocked me around quite regularly.

Shouldering five-foot sticks of pine trees, called paper wood or pulpwood, and walking in the woods through honeysuckle vines and saw briars were great learning tools for the art of stumbling. It is amazing how many of nature’s creeping plants can grab hold of size-twelve boots. Stumbling with a large stick of paper wood, you learn quickly how to fall without serious injury. The weight of the timber was backbreaking enough.

I remember one night during my junior year in high school I intercepted a pass and headed for a touchdown. I had two blockers, who should have been blocking, alongside me as I headed for the end zone. The only man to beat was the quarterback, and he was behind us. He chased, and, at the last minute, dove to catch the tip of my right cleat. I stumbled, falling short of the end zone. I went rolling head over heels like a ball. We did not score and eventually lost 14–13. I watched the play on film, and the quarterback barely touched the tip of my toe. Have you noticed that it is the little things that trip us?

Most people who stumble will jump up readily and look to see if someone is watching. The other day I stumbled on one of the boards I use for a ramp into my tool shed. It has flipped me on several occasions, but I have always landed on my feet—that is, until the moment when my neighbor was watching. The board tilted, throwing me toward the shed. Wanting to preserve my face—actually not wanting any more scars—I used the poise of a ballet dancer to turn while flying through the air toward a host of scar-making items. With the grace of a meteorite striking the earth, and the sound of an elephant falling into a room full of brass cymbals, I miraculously landed sitting upright inside the garage door.

Thinking the moment could have earned me a spot for the grand prize on America’s Funniest Home Videos (except that no one was filming), I heard my neighbor holler, “Are you okay?” I was, until I realized what a sight he had seen. I assured him that it looked and sounded more melodramatic than it was.

One Memorial Day, Bill, my good friend and minister of music at a former church, took my son Aaron and me fishing on a slough converted into a lake on the Tombigbee, west of Demopolis, Alabama. We bought some minnows—called menners in Chilton County—and headed to a great day of crappie fishing.

I became concerned about the size of the boat for the three of us. Bill assured me that it was big enough, as we bypassed a larger one. Bill would be running the trolling motor, so he wanted a boat he could navigate more easily.

We put the boat in the water, and again I questioned the size of the boat compared to the size of the three of us. Bill said, “Preacher, you get in first; Aaron can sit in the middle, and I will sit on the front.”

Slowly I maneuvered my way to the back, thinking a floating boat is an accident waiting to happen, and trying not to stumble and fall into a cold lake. I had already experienced stumbling on a rebar on a bridge and falling backward—while holding and bending two rebars—into a muddy creek where the high temperature for the day was fourteen degrees. Did you know that cold water would take your breath?

Very carefully, I made my way to the back of the dinghy (small boat), and as I sat on the bench the water came within an inch of the rim of the top of the boat. I told Bill I thought we needed the bigger boat. He assured me that it would be okay, and he told Aaron to get in. Aaron, size-fifteen boot, tripped on the ice chest between the front and middle seats and fell into my lifted and outstretched arms. I broke his fall and kept him out of the lake, but the dinghy sank to the bottom of the lake with me holding my precious baby boy in my arms. I had visions of the sinking of the Titanic. For a moment I knew how the Egyptians must have felt when the Red Sea came crashing in on them. I watched the water come over the boat like a miniature Niagara Falls, wetting me to under my armpits. I was glad we were near the bank, or we would have perished.

Bill, holding the rope to the boat—humming, I think, Taps—bent over with laughter, fell to the ground, and rolled on the bank laughing to the high heavens. Aaron made excuses for stumbling, and we became the other famous Soggy Bottom Boys. We were not men of constant sorrows, but men who got the bigger boat and had a great day of fishing, teasing, and laughing—with soggy bottoms.

“We all stumble in many ways.” (James 3:2a, NIV)

Now to Him who is able to keep them from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory in great joy. To the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen. (Jude 24–25, American Standard Version)

 

What is you first reaction when you stumble?

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How do you react when someone of faith has a moral stumble?

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Our first reaction when someone stumbles is to help him or her to his or her feet, but it is better to examine for serious injury first. What do you think?

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Prayer: The Bible reminds us that all fall short of Your glory. Stumbling is part of life. Thank You for people who have helped me when I stumble. Thank You for helping me when there was no one to prevent me from stumbling. Praise be to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty for stumbling.