Triggered: How Satan Silences the Sheep

Whether too busy, too smart, or lacking in bandwidth for concern, we often boil and are hard boiled down to as little data as possible.

 

We’re guilty of approaching others with an attitude of “I don’t have time for the whole resume, just give me the highlights, the reels, etc.” It’s just the facts, ma’am—or just the names and pronouns, ma’am. Mister? Mine are don’t/be/daft. NO ONE’s identity can or should be summed up in three words/and/two slashes.

 

One’s life cannot be fully grasped in a fifteen-second TikTok, snip-snap, or cutesy depreciations and abbreviations, IMHO. We think we are so efficient with our communication and relationships. Nah, man. Actual efficiency achieves and produces. We are just in a hurry and satisfied with mediocre.

 

A life limited to 280 characters will do that to you.

 

Truly efficient communication goes deep quickly, it is connection and ministry-minded upon arrival.

 

Friends, we don’t have time to splash around the edges of the social pool chatting about the Bachelorette. Not while people are drowning around us. DIVE. Go deep, drag to the surface, and start compressions.

 

And parents you need to know—teens are susceptible to quiet and dry drownings in a sea of poor communication. No noise or flapping. Just heads quietly slipping under or lungs that stop breathing later that night, unnoticed and un-nudged. So, yeah—I’m asking my kids and their friends all the questions.

I’ll talk about whatever you want to baby… make-up, basketball … just please stay with us and keep talking.

 

Riddle me this. In our current cultural climate, we are more available through social media, proudly inclusive, and “sensitive” to feelings.

 

But we are more lonely, depressed, and without meaningful relationships. It’s as though “liked, followed, known” is not the same as “loved, fulfilled, connected.”

 

Context, people! You know, understanding rightly what is happening, why it is happening, and to whom it’s happening? It’s a thing. We need it.

 

Context can abate tempers and temper debates, birth empathy and kill condemnation. Context is the ultimate bridge builder between diverse and divided people, which is why the Enemy hates it.

 

Have you ever thought about that? Satan hates every good and useful thing. And context is a tool for reason and relationships. Oh, he definitely hates context. And he is giving his varsity effort to vanquish it entirely.

 

Think about it. From bullying in schools to beatings on subways, where exactly is the love in our “Love Wins” society? You feeling it?

 

The callousness and cruelty we see in people is the inevitable result of a long and effective offensive campaign by the enemy.

 

Make sure you understand—this “Campaign of Offense,” though waged with minor grievance and major grudge, has delivered catastrophic loss.

He has armed the world with fragility and immaturity.

Then he turned us against each other to be triggered, outraged, and canceled to death, offended to death, through isolation from the people we don’t see or indifference for the people we do.

 

What planet are we living on? Have you ever seen the inability to cope with mere words /ideas be so elevated?

Trust me, you don’t always have to have a stiff upper lip. But a perpetually trembling lower lip is nothing of to boast of either.

 

People are recording themselves sobbing in their cars and classrooms having produced, scripted, and properly lit meltdowns over mere words, thoughts, or realities.

 

We are giving merit badges to adults for throwing tantrums like toddlers and wondering why children aren’t more mature.

 

This is not normal. This is demonic. The idea of trigger words, trigger warnings, and being triggered should be an offense to all.

But especially Believers.

You are being conditioned to live as though Christ’s life, death, resurrection, burial, AND the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is insufficient power to give you sound mind and self-control enough to process conflict and context.

 

“Safe speech” is not promoting kindness. It is promoting condescension.

There will be stupid people. They will say stupid things. You will hear them and live.

Not everyone has PTSD. And not everything is trauma. But even if everyone did and everything is… Jesus is still Lord over it all.

 

Here is why you must see this lie rightly and tear it down quickly.

Why does the Enemy want us to dismiss or distance ourselves from context?

Why is it so important for the Enemy to convince us that we cannot dialogue on the difficult, cope with the uncomfortable, or survive any offense?

 

Because he wants us to point that same loaded, fearful, self-preserving barrel at God.

 

Scripture is nothing if not triggering. Christ Himself is The Rock of Offense and Stumbling Stone (1 Peter 2:7–8 NASB). The Word and Spirit reveal, convict, and confront the very areas that we tend to guard and hide.

 

An “only affirmation” world will never tolerate a “holy transformation” witness.

 

Deny self? I couldn’t possibly. Skip that verse, that chapter even. Die to self?! Skip that whole book. Better yet close the Book entirely.

 

For sure don’t share it with anyone else. Truth. Not at all appropriate and too offensive to force upon others.

 

Hey Friend, the truth of God’s Word is not your mere opinion, and sharing it was a command, not a suggestion.

 

Governors are making laws as we speak forbidding parents from sharing the truth, or anything less than affirmation, with their transgender children. Truth is now abuse.

 

See how that works? Context is quieted because it may be triggering. Triggered becomes muzzled—by the Silencer. Man, I hate the devil.

 

This culture war is a spiritual war. This is why God calls the Body to truth, clarity, and boldness.