Two nights ago, I only got 2 hours of sleep.  About a week ago, God led me to Isaiah 41, and led me to focus on verses 10-14.  He was preparing me for the attack leveled at me a couple days ago.  Here's a graphic with verses 10-11.  Verse 12 is another highlight.

The attack was personal, and we've all experienced it in one form or another.  The hard part is separating the person from the attack.  "Is it really this person behaving in such a horrible way, or are they under the influence of some kind of spirit-drug?  Does this wickedness come from their actual heart, or are they a sock puppet for demons?"  Of course, it may be both.  The demons surely have something to work with, when they shove their hands inside the Muppet mechanisms of your earthly enemy.  If you are in a process of sanctification, you know how hard it can be to scrub the floors of your soul, when heavy implements of horrendipity have been stored there for years.  Without forgiveness, and supernatural assistance, cleaning out the crazy barnyard of the soul can be like trying to move a piece of broken-down farm equipment with a drinking straw, or digging a grave with a feather.

You get absolutely nowhere.

The question is, do we fall into the obvious, natural trap, and indulge in feelings of hatred toward the hateful?  Do we have contempt for the contemptible?  Do we return misery and loathing, for overwhelming helpings of the same?

I have prepared a Stoplight of Loathing, using the stoplight color scheme for colorblind people in Japan.  I tried to figure it out using traditional stoplight colors, but in the Stoplight of Loathing, there really is no place for green.  There is no "go," on the spectrum of infernal feelings and emotions.  To operate in that world is to be spiritually colorblind.

So, which is it?  Loathing, hatred, or contempt?

Contempt is bad, but is the least of the reactionary sins toward an experience of horrible feelings.  You can have contempt for something without hating it.  This is because the object of contempt generally provides a reason for the feeling.  Let's consider a POS as an example.  Whether the POS is a human being or literal piece of excrement, you don't "hate" the POS, really.  Do you?  Probably not.  That would be insane.  The feeling you have for the POS is contempt.  Your desire to discard the POS is a result of the contempt you have for it, not the hatred.

Of course, the POS may very well be another human being.  And often, it absolutely is.  You are unlikely to be tempted to "hate" a piece of excrement, but a human POS will entice you into higher levels of hatred and loathing, if you're not careful.

Hatred is the next level.  It may very well be the reasonable result of a long list of contemptible phenomena, but hatred must be understood as a temptation, and resisted.  The temptation toward hatred and loathing is the negative image, the polar opposite of fun temptations, but a temptation it nevertheless remains. 

Part of the temptation toward hatred is to abandon reason.  Contempt is where reason makes its last stand.  If you move beyond reason & contempt, you will have abandoned anything that can be explained in a rational manner, and will be operating in the realm of the zealously insane.

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups,
parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

Hatred is irrational.  It is capable of taking one bad experience and using it as "justification" for disposing of the object of its smug, self-righteous ire.  That object may be Jews, crackers, chicks, blacks, commies, capitalists, degenerates, Jesus freaks, or anything, but whatever the object of the lump of contempt may be, its disposal is always justified by the adherents to its hatred, all of whom are always right about everything at all times, without exception.  When the relatively-mild feeling of contempt has been pressured like a piece of coal through the transitional stage of zealous hatred, into an eventual sparkling diamond of pure loathing by the pressures of whatever, the subject has reached the zenith of destruction, and can go nowhere but down.  The would-be heights of loathing are temporal, and short-lived.  Nobody stays there for long.  Even if they spend their entire lives polishing the infernal jewels of loathing until they sparkle and gleam with pure hellfire, they're only ever one involuntary heartbeat away from the end.

To date, no one has survived their encounter with loathing.

No one.

"For what is your life? It is even a vapour,
that appeareth for a little time,
and then vanisheth away.”
James 4:14

So, then.  What's the solution?  Is there a cure?  Even if our contempt has a reason, and can be explained and maybe even legally justified, how do we resist the temptation to follow the conveyor belt to hell into the darker realms of hatred, loathing, and our own eternal demise?

Forgiveness, for one.  Unlike loathing, forgiveness isn't natural.  It requires spiritual help.  I can't do it.  Not when faced with the mask of dumb, self-righteous loathing, staring down at me from a podium of fire.  My instant, reasonable response is to hold that person (or those people) in contempt.  But I can't do that.  To do that is to take one step on the road of diamond loathing, which ends in misery and pain.

This is when the Jesus talk gets real.  This is where the rubber hits the road.  If you can stay off the road of diamond loathing, even one step, then there is real hope.  It's easy when things are going swimmingly, and everything makes sense.  It's when the devil (or his human sock puppets) step on your heart and soul and mind with combat boots of dumb, demonic power, that you really have to put your faith to work.  "Put on the whole armor of God," is not just a cutesy platitude for weak-minded people who "need" to believe in something so they can get through the day.  It's basic training for people at war.  Note that the only offensive weapon in the arsenal is the Word of God.  All the other armor is defensive, to protect the warrior against being wounded or killed by the attack.

So, thank God, He warned me in advance of this coming attack, though even then I didn't see it coming.  Even though I've been waiting for it.  It still caught me off guard, and in fact knocked me into the ditch, where I smoked an entire pack of cigarettes on 2 hours of sleep.  It was terrible.  I never smoke, and when I do, I always throw my leftover cigarettes away.  But this time, I got through an entire pack.

And then I remembered, God warned me this was coming.  And it wasn't really a warning; he told me what the outcome would be, before the battle even began.  "Do not fear, I am with you."  "All that strive with thee shall perish."  "They that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought."

Wow.  Okay.  I'm in.  Take heed, ye dirty dogs.  When you get to hell, don't say that you weren't warned.

As I like to say, "your smug, dismissive sanctimony will fuel the fires of your torment for eternity."

It's horrible, really.  It's easier to forgive them when you realize that not only are you not joining them in torment, but that that torment is in fact horrific, and that the far more-important thing is to forgive them, on the chance that they might survive the coming humbling, and repent and be saved themselves.

"And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought
against any: that your Father also which is in
heaven may forgive you your trespasses."
Mark 11:25

What if they don't repent?  Well, then...

They really have it coming.

Don't they?