Yesterday handed me two milestones in this little 40–day writing experiment of mine, one welcome and one…less so. On the happy side of the ledger, this page slipped past 2,300 followers, and for that I am genuinely grateful. Most days, a marker like that would be the headline in my mind.
But not yesterday. Yesterday’s spotlight got hijacked by milestone number two: a small flurry of irritation in the form of a complaint, an atheistic lecture confidently explaining that God is fiction and prayer is pointless, and finally a string of crude profanity thrown in for emphasis. It was as if my quiet little corner of the internet had accidentally been routed through the comment section of a very angry town hall.
To be fair, this is probably the cost of doing business when a fellow pays Facebook a few dollars a day to push his stories out beyond the circle of friends and usual encouragers. Facebook assures me these are people likely to appreciate what I write—to like it, maybe even love it, and perhaps leave a thoughtful comment when they’re done. And overall, that promise has held up pretty well; their knowledge of who might enjoy faith–soaked storytelling has helped these posts find a much wider audience than I could have reached on my own.
But as yesterday proved, Facebook’s knowledge is not exactly omniscient. The targeting might be sharp, but it still throws the occasional wild pitch right at someone who wants nothing to do with God, prayer, or anyone stubborn enough to write about either.
The first response that rolled in was actually funny—a meme lamenting that my story had barged into this person’s peaceful scroll like an uninvited relative at a quiet family dinner. It wasn’t clear whether they disliked my content in particular or just resented any sponsored intrusion into their feed, but at least they packaged their irritation with a little humor, and there’s something to be said for that.
The second reaction traded humor for vehemence. It was another meme, this one trying to “educate” me by laying out the idea that God is purely a human invention and that prayer is, at best, wishful thinking and, at worst, self–deception. The tone wasn’t curious or conversational; it was more like a lecture from someone who is quite sure the case is closed and anyone who disagrees just hasn’t evolved enough yet.
The third reply was the simplest of all: a very common two-word curse, repeated over and over like a drumbeat. It was the rhetorical equivalent of someone standing on the sidewalk shouting the same crude dismissal again and again, as if volume and repetition could make up for the lack of thought.
Now, for a big guy, I’m pretty tenderhearted, and unkind words often sting. But the odd thing about yesterday is that none of the reactions really got down into the place where rejection and insult usually live.
Almost as soon as the comments appeared, a familiar promise from the Sermon on the Mount stepped to the front of my mind: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me…for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Oddly, after those verses came to mind, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had really insulted me or put me down for my faith—and that realization troubled me more than the comments themselves.
There are people online who are constantly berated and attacked for their supposedly Christian beliefs, and I say “supposedly” because the statements drawing all that hatred and venom often owe more to loaded language and incendiary tone than to the heart of the gospel.
In the classroom, I used to deal with students who would lob verbal hand grenades into a discussion—not serious contributions, just remarks designed to stir things up and generate more heat than light. In those cases, the abuse they received wasn’t really a reaction to any deep conviction, but to the way they chose to throw their words like weapons. In my younger life, I knew exactly how to play that game—insult and berate people or their beliefs, then feign injury when they responded in kind.
These days, I can honestly say I’m no longer seriously tempted to weaponize my words, because that’s not the example Jesus lived. Scripture says of Him that a bruised reed He would not break and a smoldering wick He would not snuff out; He moved toward wounded people with gentleness, not with verbal grenades.
In my heart, I believe the God-deniers put a lot of effort into fighting what they insist is only a fiction, and the profane response to the name of Jesus sounds less like clever argument and more like a kind of spiritual bankruptcy laid bare.
So today, I invite you to join me in praying not only for the people who posted negative, even hateful comments, but also for the many others who may have thought the same things in their hearts and just never typed them out.
. . . and that’s what I know today.