The only thing you can trust are the convictions in your heart.
We should never be surprised when fools act foolish. You should have no reason at all to expect them to ever do anything else. It should never shock you just how awful they can be. All the more so when you realize that your shock and dismay is one of their primary weapons. Your greatest defense in the face of their attack is aplomb.
The fallen realm is a lie. It is the curse of blindness that comes from trusting reason and senses. These people live in a false reality, a world of their own making. They make up a wild story about how their viewpoint is hard-edged reality. They want to debate only so they can steal away your sense of mission and calling from God. They want to drag you back into the prison of lies, the dominion of Satan.
Do you understand that I am talking about most of the world around you? The majority of the US is blind to the truth and on their way to Hell. Debate is not an evangelistic technique, except perhaps for them. When you agree to debate, you have already surrendered the ground of faith.
We are going to face a constant barrage of accusations about being nuts, living in our own little world. What they do not understand is that your “own little world” is more valid than their mythological “objective reality.” Don’t fall for the propaganda. Don’t meet them on their own turf. Do invade their world with your truth, with the shalom of God’s revelation. But realize that they are seeing something in their world that you reject. Their brains are wired for delusion.
The only Truth in this life is your mission and calling from God. That is the foundation of all your assumptions about what you experience. It is just you and the Lord together living His truth. We touch a tree and know it lives; we can feel the tingle of the Creator’s love in that contact. We can hear the song of praise in the leaves. The grass and flowers at your feet sing their own unique songs of joy, celebrating that your heart is alive and recognizes their personhood. The fools around us cannot perceive any of this.
Granted, some few of you are called by God and endowed with the mental weapons to engage them with their own logic. I assure you, it’s not a privilege. It’s a nasty job wallowing in that crap. When that’s the case, you use their logic against them to eviscerate their positions. You aren’t showing that faith is reasonable, but that it doesn’t have to meet their tests of reason. Your mission is to explain in terms they might be able to understand.
But most of you have no reason to mess with it. Say nothing unless you have a talent from God for expressing things. Mostly it’s a matter of simply living your faith and dismissing their concerns. “Sorry, but I don’t live by your rules. I don’t care how you feel about it.” You aren’t required to listen when they insist that our Savior is a delusion; they are the ones who cannot see. Just smile and shake it off. The same goes if they hold to a different brand of cerebral religion.
At the same time, you will insist on caring about what really matters for their welfare as the Bible defines it. You’ll pray for them and bless them according to your own mission and calling. You’ll do what’s right merely because it’s right. Faith and obedience to Christ is its own reward.
We are Christian Mystics and no defense of truth is necessary.
The best we can hope for is an understanding from others that we simply believe different and are mostly harmless fellows and ladies. Maybe paradoxically, I’ve only encountered that attitude from very politically-liberal, New Age types, particularly women. Maybe it’s because they have one foot in the same boat as us and have learned to be at peace with being perceived as a loon.
Well stated: “Be at peace with being perceived as a loon.” I’ll grant that the culture shift signaled by the rise of Millennials has brought some good things with the bad. The concept of a social norm has become threadbare and ragged.
” I’m not a complete idiot, some parts are missing ”
Conclusion: being perceived as a loon is my greatest asset. However, those who take themselves too seriously despise people like me, who fail to be “concerned” enough to become an outraged sjw. Give them enough power and it’s off to a “re-education camp”.
I also honor my ancestors who fought in the 26th NC Regiment for the cause of the CSA and gave their last full measure of devotion and lost. My third great grandfather was the oldest man to enlist in the state, he was around 55. He was discharged due to “old age and general debility” his son was killed on July 1st 1863 outside Gettysburg, PA. They owned no slaves and were tenant farmers. I don’t hide it and this marks me as an implacable enemy of radical progressives so, I would probably be executed.