Psa 120:2 Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, From a deceitful tongue.
We can all think back in time and remember red flags that were times when the mask of the RASN slipped. But why didn’t we see it then?
For example, let’s say you have known someone, a “friend,” for a number of years. As far as you know, they are what they seem to be. And you want to believe that. None of us really want to go through life assuming that everyone is a RASN (reviler, abuser, sociopath, narcissist) who is out to deceive us. And we shouldn’t want that.
But some people are RASNs – and it seems like more of them are out there than we once thought.
But here is this friend who you believe you know, who looks pretty much the same every time you see them. And then, one day, an odd thing happens which you believe is out of character for them. They respond to you in a very cold, mean, manner that takes you off guard. But you let it go. You dismiss it. You use some standard excuses and forget about it.
It is a serious mistake to just forget about, to just let it go. When someone acts toward us coldly, with a mean tone, in a manner that jolts us because you aren’t used to getting that from this person, we should never let it go. We want to. We think it’s the easy way out….but THINK. Why do we say it’s the easy way out? I can tell you. Because we know, subconsciously if you will, that to talk to the person about how they just acted is going to be the HARD way. We sense it, and this tells me that all along we have known or felt that “something just ain’t right” with this person. That we have to walk a bit more carefully around them than we do around other friends.
Understand? It is not a little thing to be easily dismissed when someone who has claimed to be a friend to us treats us ill in such a manner. If they really are a normal, real friend, they are going to be the one to talk about how they just acted. They will be the one to apologize for treating you that way. But when someone does this and then never makes apology, never talks about how they spoke to you, and you are the one left to bring it up, we need to have red lights flashing in our minds that something is not right here.
Because, you see, this business is indeed a BIG deal. Don’t be put off with the “oh, don’t be so sensitive, I didn’t mean anything, you are imagining it,” lie. It IS a big deal when someone who claims to be what they apparently are not suffers a mask slip. And if we just let it go, the thing is going to come back and bite us hard sooner or later.