Bullies

Have you ever been the victim of a hostile, uncaring, unfeeling, mean spirited, aggressive bully? Or even worse...have you been a bully?

The definition of a bully is: a person who habitually seeks to harm or intimidate those whom they perceive as vulnerable.

To bully is to: seek to harm, intimidate or coerce someone perceived as vulnerable.

I have never been a bully. I care too much about people, especially the "Underdog". Don't get me wrong, I can be mean sometimes, but I'm not a bully. I wouldn't go after someone for "sport". I wouldn't make a plan to purposely want to make someone feel tortured and "less than".

I have been bullied. It feels awful. It's so deflating and demeaning. I felt so worthless and weak. I felt helpless. Witnessing someone being bullied and being bullied yourself is equally horrible. It's all inhuman.

Typically in stories with a bully torturing his victim or victims...there comes a moment when the person being bullied becomes the bully. There is usually the scene with the victim turning the tables and teaching the bully a "lesson" and getting the upper hand and being triumphant in taking down the villain and then all is peaceful in the land. At first glance...this seems like justice, but ultimately, it's just all bullying.

I feel we are living in a world full of bullies. It seems to me that people who have felt bullied or been bullied are now the Bully's with a capital B. "You wronged me...now I'm going to make your life miserable. Even if you didn't bully me, someone did....so I'm going to make you pay!"

When did this become okay? How is it alright to just blatantly bully each other? I was under the impression years ago that we were supposed to teach our children to treat others with kindness, compassion, sympathy and empathy. Now the adults are the bullies. The adults are treating others with no regard.

Now the children are learning that it's more important to stomp all over people to "get your way" and to "get what you're entitled to"...this is what they see grown ups doing, so why shouldn't they do the same?

Satan, of course, is the ultimate bully. He really seeks to harm and intimidate us. He wants nothing more than to divide and hurt us and stir the pot and prod us to hurt others. He is actively recruiting us to be in his bully army and people are falling for it!

DON'T DO IT! Be strong!

Look what happened with Jesus! Don't forget how intensely He was bullied! He didn't retaliate...He didn't seek vengeance. We need to use Jesus as our model and reject bullying all together!

We need to STOP this mentality NOW! We need to lean on Christ more and more. He's our only hope!