While servants of the prince of darkness present themselves as angels of love and goodness, they grant their victims in part those things the flesh desires to have without cost of life. Souls are thus ensnared in their own selfishness.
“I gave my child all it wanted. I spared nothing. What more could I have done?” laments the parent whose child is now on drugs or in prison or dead.
How ironic that the sure path to destruction is receiving at request all that one could ask for! How ironic that our way to peace and fulfillment is in denial, hardship and deprivation until the final day!
The epitome of selfishness:
“I want,” it declares;
“I want it all,” it demands;
“I want it all now,” it screams.
It loves to be pampered and cuddled.
It has no notion of cost to another,
No care for one’s needs or desires
Other than its own.
When not obliged,
Its world stands still,
Its heart bound in the thing it wants.
A thousand things a day it wants.
“My way!” it cries,
Not for reason’s sake nor truth,
Not for right nor even good,
But for self, and when denied,
It pouts;
Sullen and resentful,
It eats itself
And those around
Unless it gets its way.
The child of evil is ruled
By its passions
And its whims,
By its ignorance
And its needs so perceived.
At every turn it cries
Unless it gets its way;
It clings to itself to live,
Held in the grip of death.
But deliverance comes
As an enemy,
In the form of a rod,
The rod of chastening,
of discipline,
of correction.
The one who wields is wise;
He will not spare for the crying.
He knows the cries
Of a child;
He knows he is not
The cause of those cries
But the cure,
Though the child cries
When he cures.
He knows that if he spares,
He destroys.
The destroyer is
The flatterer,
The sympathizer,
The pamperer,
The one who understands
Without understanding,
The one who cares
Without caring,
The one who loves
Without love.
The deliverer
Understands and cares and loves
With the rod of truth.
Blessed is the one
Who is not offended in him
And cursed is the one who is.
Lethbridge, Alta., Dec. 1985
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