Poison People

There are some people you cannot help.
I rode my bicycle on the bike path. As I approached the cutout for a street crossing, he carefully pulled his small pickup against the curb, blocking the path. I could have ridden across the grass and jumped the curb, but something in my spirit said to be patient. So I denied him even eye contact, and simply turned my head to stare at the clover growing among the grass blades on my left. I waited calmly, betraying no emotion at all. Eventually he drove away.
Who knows what motivates high school kids to be so hateful? It’s not as if he didn’t see my graying beard or that I was twice his size with an ancient tattoo on my arm. I wasn’t going to play his game, but played my own. My flesh wanted to confront him and “teach him a lesson” but my spirit warned me it wouldn’t happen that way. So I gave him to God and rode on to my destination.
Then there was the lovely single lady who lived nearby, young enough to be my daughter. I would never kid around with her because she was always trying to analyze everything I said, looking for a subtext that simply was not there. She lost her well-paying job and slowly her life fell apart. It didn’t matter if she used drugs, because she lost control the same as any addict. She would ask for me to fix things on her house, and I would agree to help her, doing it with her, but not to do it for her nor let her pay me. She never called on me for those things. As she sank farther into crisis, she began acting crazier. She was not above trying to play seductive, played it well and had the assets for it. But I kept her at arm’s length, because I could see she was out of reach. That is, I knew if I got close enough to actually help, she would consume me, get me twisted up in her crazy life. I helped her move out, though.
I volunteer to help my neighbors with things I can do. An equally lovely lady across the street from me lives alone and often asks for help. She jokes with me and doesn’t take things too seriously. She tries to manage on her own, but sometimes can’t quite get it. I have no trouble doing stuff for her because it’s a gain, not a loss. Helping her does not breed an unnatural dependence; it builds friendship and blesses me more than her. If I can’t help, she thanks me for listening and somehow works it out.
There are others who use me and even abuse me, but as long as I can afford it, there’s no problem. Jesus warned there would always be poor people on this earth. Fallen humanity is just that way. It won’t matter how you calculate a redistribution of wealth, because redistribution changes the variables. Besides, some folks never get enough. It’s not that we can’t create enough for human need; we cannot create enough for human demand. Some people are poison to the whole world; some are simply poison to you.
The point is, you should know your limits. How much has God put in your hands? If He does not build in you the faith to tackle mountains, stay in the foothills until your path higher is revealed. He most surely can and does tell folks to back off and don’t mess with something He didn’t fit them to handle. If you are not disciplined in the ways of the Spirit Realm, you’ll never understand where to draw the line. The spirit-Spirit communion always knows where to find the threads of God’s moral fabric.
There are some people in your life whose sole purpose is to test you, to tempt you into folly — they are poison to you.