Luke 16:22-24 “Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. (23) “In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and *saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. (24) “And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’
Projection. When you were a kid – if you are as old as I am – you were in your old grade school classroom and suddenly the Audio Visual kid (I never figured out how to get selected for that position??)…the kind shows up at your classroom door with a movie the teacher wants the class to watch. And there on that cart is this big gadget (which sometimes melted the film) called a projector. It projects. It casts an image onto the screen. Throws it at the screen and puts what is on the reel of film on that screen.
That is what the RASN (reviler, abuser, sociopath, narcissist) does. He/she projects what is in them onto the screen, and that screen is YOU. We see examples of it all the time in the news. Some politician/office holder in front of a microphone blames the very things he/she has done on their political opponents. They got us into a war or they demolished the economy – the blame is clearly upon them – and yet they stand right up before that microphone and tell us that someone else did it. Sometimes they even tell us that WE did it!
RASNs, as you know, are never wrong. They never take the blame. I am reading one of Ann Rule’s true crime books right now, Dead by Sunset (you should read it. It’s painful but it is a real education about RASNs). Brad Cunningham, presently serving a life sentence right here in the Oregon State Penitentiary, nearly 40 years after he murdered his poor wife, is a classic evil example of a wicked person who always used projection as a tactic. Brad was never wrong. It was not only always someone else’s fault, it was that someone else had done the very things that in fact BRAD had done.
Projection is very closely related to that other evil tactic we call gaslighting. Which is also very closely related to the tactic of crazy making. What a package! Projection – gaslighting – crazy making. Now there is a triple dose of poison that will totally mess us up if we aren’t wise to it all. Perhaps we need another acronym – PGC.
When someone projects the sin they are committing onto you, don’t accept it. Don’t believe it. Don’t make excuses for it. Recognize it for what it is. Some years ago a wicked man accused me of rejecting anyone who doesn’t agree with me. And he did this while he was in the very process of rejecting me!! I didn’t fully understand what was going on at the time – the irony of it – but now I do. I can see it. Don’t let that projector project its image on you. If you are in fact guilty, if indeed you have sinned, then confess it and it will be forgiven by the Lord. But don’t wear guilt that is false guilt. When the rich man tells you how much he is suffering because of YOU, be an Abraham and tell him the real reason he is suffering consequences. Because HE was evil in his lifetime and now it is payback time.