Friday, February 08, 2013

Red Flags

My big wish this year is to hear clearly...to hear myself clearly. When I write, when I have conversations with folks, when I meet strangers, when I walk alone...to "hear" clearly what is going on in the back of my mind.

Because I don't.

The Bible says "God's sheep hear His voice." I believe this. I believe our intuition, inner mind, better self, speaks to us and that the still small voice and the stuff we hear at the bottom of my mind, in the back of our brain, are guidance from God and our spirit. After all, the Bible says "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord."

So, why, then, do we disregard red flags when we deal with people?

As Christians, as people living in a Judeo-Christianity-affected culture, we are brainwashed to always see the other person's side or to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. We don't want to wrong others and often we are taught that we should give up our own agenda, our own intuition, etc.. so that we won't hurt the feelings of another.

But dang! That kinda thinking leads to folks getting themselves killed. IF you're going into an elevator and some guy is on it and red flags from the back of your mind kick in, should you enter the elevator alone just because you don't want to hurt some guy's feeling?

I keep thinking of the homeless guy we took care of at church, who confessed to us that he was a murderer, who turned out to be sleeping with a drug-addled homeless woman in the attic of the church (because we were stupid and gave him the keys), who turned out to be ordering pizza from our church after we had closed it (cause he had a credit card that he hopened the door with...cause we entrusted him to put in the new locks.)

Seriously???? WHAT were we thinking??????

And I and the pastor had stayed alone in that church with this guy -- alone or separately-- so often. And if the pastor or I had gotten raped or murdered, the first thing folks would've said was: "Why didn't God protect her? She was such a sweet person!" As if God hadn't warned us and been warning us all along.

I gotta get my self-protection meter in tune again and not squelch it as I've been doing. 

2 comments:

Y.S. Stephen said...

We tune out the Holy Spirit, that what.

Carole McDonnell said...

so true, Yomi

Blog Archive

Popular Posts