Avoid – Set Boundaries – Educate.

Do those three things, if you want to survive.

Some of us went for a walk and to a coffee shop today. It’s a neighborhood thing, and the people who join us are always nice. The conversations are fun, usually.

If you haven’t learned, there are people who will wreck your life, if they can. Too much nice is a problem. So; Avoid – Set Boundaries – Educate.

After about an hour, our conversation got very serious. We were taking up seats that other people wanted, and our cups were empty. It was time to go.

You might have had the experience; people get serious after the conversation has used up all the fun topics.

I think our friend decided that he trusted us, and he got serious. He is a successful businessman, and I respect him because he works hard, and he is good to other people. If he has any success, he earned it.

One person that he helped was a young woman, much younger than him. My friend does not have a family. I don’t know his story, but he lives alone in a very nice house.

That makes him a target.

The young woman was very interested in him, but he was cautious, and he was also very busy with his work and business. I will skip some details, but my friend was traveling with some other friends of his, and the young woman invited herself as part of the group.

At one point, he saw her sitting outside, and she called him over. She then gave him one of the most terrifying talks of his life. She was very angry, and she threatened him. She talked about violence, and legal action, and about ways she could ruin his reputation.

My friend was terrified.

From a distance, I think she lives in this world as a predator, and he looked like an easy target. She was bitterly disappointed when he applied his personal morals and rejected her plan.

The prey escaped.

My friend is still shocked. I know he tries hard to be a good person, and his customers really like his business. They come in large numbers. Probably he is used to everyone smiling, and being nice, around him.

The young woman’s dark and evil plans shocked him.

Too much nice is a problem. We might start believing that everyone is nice and that we can always live in a state of sunshine. We might miss what the Bible tells us about original sin.

We don’t understand evil, and ‘sin’ is such an old-fashioned word. If you don’t have a story like my friend, ask your friends. Someone will tell you a shocking story, possibly with a sad ending.

If you want advice from a Psychologist:

• READ: Psychology Expert Shares Traits of Highly Selfish, Entitled People and How to Deal with Them

I’m mostly focused on the best response to dark and evil people: Avoid – Set Boundaries – Educate.

Educate: My friend tried to explain himself to the young woman, but that didn’t work. She wanted what she wanted.

Set Boundaries: My friend was careful, with the young woman, and remembered his personal moral standards. I’m sure that was not easy, and she had her own standards.

Avoid: My friend got a ride to the airport, from a trusted friend, and he flew home alone. Since then, he has cut off all contact with the young woman. He won’t go near her, or communicate with her.

Whatever we think about my friend and his problem, it is clear that he has a spiritual problem. I suspect he is shocked by how close he came to ruining his life, and tearing down everything that he worked hard to build. I remember times in my own life, when I saw spiritual darkness in others, and I saw it in me.

The truth can be a shock. My friend is still stunned by how close he came to the edge of a cliff.

It is a shock to learn that these old-fashioned words are true, about me. I need to apply the ‘Avoid – Set Boundaries – Educate’ to myself:

… dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience; among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2: 2 and 3)