Starving a Narcissist
Have you ever known a narcissist? A narcissist is someone who seeks abnormal amounts of attention from others. They need to be the center of the universe, and they believe everyone should acknowledge them and their behavior, whether good or bad. They might even say, “The only bad attention is no attention.” They will disregard the needs and feelings of everyone else in their life if their behavior will make them famous or even infamous, because as long as someone is talking about them, all is good. If you do not believe me, look at what people will do for a simple “like” on their social media platform today.
We all know someone like this because narcissism is a fruit of selfishness, and people are generally selfish. Selfishness can be mild, like taking the last piece of cake without asking or making your spouse watch something on TV because you want to watch it. There are more extreme cases of selfishness, like adultery, manipulation, or bullying. In these cases, narcissism might be a better way to describe the person’s behavior, as it has now moved into the realm of idolatry or the worship of oneself.
It only takes a few minutes of watching the news or being on social media sites to see how selfish people have become, especially when others praise them. From Hollywood and musicians to government and religious leaders, they desire the praise and worship of others. We should never expect the praise and worship of others, but their attention-seeking goes far beyond normal or acceptable behavior. Everyone wants a headline today, or at least 15 minutes of fame, even at the cost of others.
Who is the greatest narcissist of all time? Before there were even men on the earth, Satan was desiring praise and attention in heaven. I heard someone say, “We hate others because Satan first hated us.” Well, in some ways, this is true because Satan hated Adam when he tempted him in the garden. Hatred is the absence of love. Since God is love and Satan is God’s antithesis or direct opposite, Satan would by definition be hate.
When Adam sinned, he brought sin in the form of hate into his life. In the same way, when we give our lives to Jesus and He comes to live in us, we allow His love to become one with us. God must be praised because He is our Creator. He does not need to make us praise Him because He will always be honored and worshiped by those who love Him. Satan must manipulate people into praising him because He has no actual value to offer, and if he cannot make someone praise him, he will settle for having them talk about him with others.
A narcissist wants people to talk about them at all costs. When we focus on Satan, even if we are talking about him to discredit him, like I am doing in this blog right now, he is momentarily content. Sometimes, we must speak of him to be effective in warring against him, but we should limit the time we spend thinking about or talking about him with others. He loves all our attention, good and bad, so let us stop giving it to him.
If you stop talking about a narcissist, you will starve them of the attention they so desperately seek. This will usually cause them to overplay their hand to draw attention back to themselves. Their negative behavior will be the only thing they have left to manipulate people into paying attention to them, and when they play too roughly, people get hurt. Narcissists do not care about the pain and suffering they are causing others as long as they receive attention. Starving them of attention will force them to show who they are by relegating them to hateful and despicable acts, so everyone being deceived might finally see the truth of who they are.
If people truly knew who Satan was, they would never serve him. This is why he promises fake prosperity and blessings of the world to those who choose to follow him. If people truly knew our heavenly Father, they would never leave Him because He is good and loving to all those who believe in Him. Satan wrongfully seeks praise and worship while God receives praise and worship simply because He is our Creator. We should not try to rob God of the attention He deserves by giving our attention to another. We should not give any attention to anyone who is not deserving of it because we are simply feeding their narcissism.
