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Those Who Oppose You
By Marc | October 7, 2007
"So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
"All who rage against you
will surely be ashamed and disgraced;
those who oppose you
will be as nothing and perish." – Isaiah 41:10-11
While we enjoy the positive emails we get, we started this site with the knowledge that more than likely we would get the general assortment of cranks, freaks, anti-whatever, and general hate email. Not necessarily because of the nature of our site, but just because we are a website at all. Unless you are loved by the teeming masses because of your ability to be liked, lenient, and/or non-offensive in your writings, you’re going to find someone who you tick off just because of (finish the sentence–anything will fit here).
But, even though we expect to get emails of a bad nature, it’s still upsetting and discouraging when you get your first one. Ours had something to with Christians having to follow Old Testament laws about who we should kill and who we should hate. It was filled with logic flaws, things taken out of context, and intentional misinterpretations.
But, since we were prepared to get hate mail, it didn’t really shake us (but did really make us laugh). We were just unprepared on how to handle it. Should we ignore it? Should we respond? If we respond, how should we do it? Should it be in anger? By using logic against the email’s flawed facts? By ticking the sender off by saying we’ll pray for him or her? What to do?
On thinking this through, if I got angry, I would play into the hands of the sender by giving the reaction he or she expected. If I used logic, more than likely the person has already decided that he or she is right, so will discount anything I could possibly say, thus aggravating me and puffing up the ego of the other person. If I turned into the stereotype of a Jesus freak, I would just feed the sender’s distorted view of Christians. If I totally ignore it, would I appear to be afraid of this person’s obviously superior "genius"?
I kept thinking in terms of it being a personal attack and should be a personal retaliation. "You have offended me, sir. Prepare to duel." I wasn’t thinking in terms of God.
I also thought about my reasons for Julie and me putting ourselves out there in the first place. It’s not for us. It’s not for our egos. Sure, we would like to make a little money from the site to help pay the bills, but we don’t do this completely for us. We’re doing this for God. We don’t always get it right, we don’t always make sense, and the topics aren’t always religious, but our hearts are for Him.
A good friend of mine pointed me to the passage at the beginning of this article and it just fits. Although God is addressing Israel in this instance, it is very true for anyone truly devoted to Him.
Who’s stronger, the Lord who’s side I’m on or the little punk who just wants to cause trouble? Who created the earth and set the stars in place? Who sacrificed everything for the salvation of wretched sinners? Who gave me a loving wife and two beautiful children? Who made a change in me that I could even accept His gift of life, both eternal and the current one?
So, this email is just a gnat. A little annoyance; not really even worth my time. Looking back, I can’t even believe I spent ANY time on it. It was just a feeble attempt to…uh…do something. Discredit us? Call us hypocrites? Get us to change our minds about even following Jesus? Who knows, the person could have just had severe anger issues. Does it matter? No. What matters is Who I serve.
I realize that there sometimes comes a time in the lives of people that the person who threatens you is a real threat to your life, your livelihood, and the things you hold dear. The same applies, but the choice can be a little tougher to make. Who do you serve? I’m not saying you won’t be in danger, and the other person may win the battle, but eventually your enemies will just disappear. God will still be there.
I’m reminded of Shelley’s poem Ozymandias, where there are the ruins of a gigantic stone statue, alone in a huge expanse of desert, with the inscription:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Foolish and arrogant men and women will be forgotten, no matter how important they think they are.
Epilogue -I found out by a little searching that the email was just a copy and paste of something that appears in various blog comments and also part of a printout for a card you can put in your wallet as a way to combat Christians. (Don’t think, just memorize. That could be a subject for a whole other article.) Silly people. Not only was it misinformed, it wasn’t even original. More than likely this person sends this copy and paste email to Christian sites all over the place. That almost makes me sad. Almost.
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