Outlasting Flattery and Sniping

“Behold, they who flatter and snipe are nothing; they will pass away with the sound of their words, but the truth of the Lord remains forever.”

— Thomas á Kempis (1380–1471)

There is a strange coherence between those who are given to flattery and sniping. Those who engage in the one usually engage in the other. There is a stark disingenuousness about them. They are mendacious and flexible upon their questionable morality. Anything for a price.

We, however, are called to integrity. We all are.

Alignment to the code of truth—to the Lord—is our divine imperative here and now, always. We’re tempted to be sickened by the duplicitous intent of those who engage in vulgarities, just because they can. But, in this world, there will always be those who shall be quickly passing away; not missed by any allegiance of legacy to the next generation.

The only thing the treacherous one leaves is a bane for the sad unfortunates that follow as their sons and daughters. That is, apart from the many fragments of damage they leave strewn through others’ lives they blew through.

Leaving Behind Temptations to Anxiety

God is good and we know it. The Lord is seeing to it that we are not trapped by those given headlong to their disloyalty. We are, and will be, blessed. Our faith says so, and so does God. We are not left marooned.

It can appear that the flatterer and the sniper have control.

Well, of course they don’t.

Faith’s needed to see beyond sight. They seem popular, happy, even glib—and they seem to get away with it. We best not envy them by wondering why we’re ‘not so blessed’. We probably know the Word of God tells us these truths, but living it is another thing entirely.

But that negatively-poised thinking’s not getting us anywhere—and certainly not to the blessing we were destined for. Leaving behind the typical anxieties of these situations is about becoming God-poised, God-positioned, and God-focused, toward becoming God-blessed.

Leaving behind the common and petty temptations to envy and anger and retribution is about knowing the wonder of God’s enduring truth that surpasses the world and all things physical and material.

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People who flatter and snipe are commonly the same; here today, gone tomorrow. It’s up to us to choose a better bread to feed upon. The truth of God endures eternally; it leaves every false thing in its wake. Where will we go today?

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.