I’ve written this before, and it is in me to repeat it again: at least in my experience, I have learned that there are people who care about what we are doing [in life] and are determined to be a stumbling block to us.
There are people throughout history whose lives were cut short, by overzealous, obsessive fans or jealous loved ones (think Selena, John Lennon, Marvin Gaye). Imagine being in the prime of life, and secretly, there’s a conspiracy to cut your life short. And you wonder why some people go to extreme lengths to maintain privacy, even from family and friends, because there are those who have come to understand that the glory can incite a jealousy that leads someone to want to destroy you. It’s not a new concept and it’s not remarkable, I suppose, to say these things.
Everyone feels jealous. We compare our lives to each other until we feel even less inadequate than we may have felt previously. But if left unchecked, it can cause people to use their influence, their power, their advantage to destroy someone else. It can be through gossip, exaggerated lies, bringing up things from the past with the intent to disfavour, dishonour and naked someone and disgrace them. The heart of man is desperately wicked, who can understand it? You’d think some people’s closets are skeleton-free with the way they boast and cast stones. Some go to extreme lengths of physical harm.
But I’m reminded of Apostle Paul, how God exposed the conspiracy of the 40 men who had bound themselves to a curse that they would kill Paul. Their conspiracy was exposed, and Paul escaped their grasp.
One of the things that stands out about this, other than God’s grace towards Paul, is that over 40 men decided, soberly, and cursed themselves, so that they could see their enemy destroyed. In our everyday life we may not necessary make oaths, although we kind of do (think “over my dead body that X will happen”). I think this is why the bible often warns us to be careful about the company in which we find ourselves and adding our voice to things that we ought to stay away from. In our zeal, our outrage, we don’t want to have a portion with people, who, when God arises against them, will be destroyed alongside them.
Don’t share in the portion of the wicked. Don’t align yourself with people whose end is destruction. There are those who wage campaigns against others with motives arising from jealousy, thinking they are justified to do and say evil. They are emboldened all the more, because they have the trust of the crowds they are bewitching. But just as God’s grace was with Paul, may God expose every one of your conspirators. And for the disgrace they gleefully prepared for you, may those people experience it seven times over. May God look away from them and remove his compassion from them. And those who are in constant pursuit of you to destroy you, may they experience double destruction. May God continually give you divine escape.
I don’t say this so that one becomes paranoid. But in life, we ought to be vigilant and sober. There are lots of things in life that one could say “that has nothing to do with me” and certainly it may not, but someone’s thoughts of evil cannot be more powerful than our desire to see the plans of God for our lives fulfilled. No human being should have that much authority over a destiny they did not have a hand in constructing. But if we say nothing, and do nothing, and continually brush things under the rug, those who hate you will prevail over you whilst they pretend to smile in your face.
This 2025, may God look kindly on us, and show us his grace, and make a public spectacle of all of our enemies, and his.
