In American two of our slangs are: "he pushed my buttons," and another is "he played me."
In life you must be careful not to let anyone push yuor buttons or play you. People will say something like "I didn't want to get mad but she pushed my buttons." This means that a person knows exactly how to get you mad or angry or envious or depressed.
It takes a lot of awareness not to let someone push your buttons or play you. People can get on your nerves but you alone have the power to decide how you react. Thoughts can come into your mind but you alone have the choice to follow them. When someone pushes your buttons your choice goes out of your hands. When someone human or a demon does something to you because they know your personality and your sins and your tendencies,
they pretty much can direct your life by doing things that make you react in one way or another.
It's as if you're a computer or a TV and the person knows that if they do A, you will do B.
They know if they say "this" to you that you will do "that."
The devil is like that. He's been around for centuries. He knows how to play humans. He knows human reactions.
People are like that -- they push your buttons. Sometimes they say things or do things to make us react in a certain way. Sometimes they don't even know that things they say in their own lives or towards another person are really thoughts put into their heads by the devil.
Paul tells us we are not ignorant of the devil's devices...but we Christians often are. Just because a thought comes into our minds doesn't mean we have to say, do, or think it.
Always question your immediate reactions and learn to react to things the way God would want you to. I cannot tell you how many times I've ruined things for myself because someone "pushed my buttons." Train yourself to do the right thing, train yourself to have the right reactions. The book of proverbs is a good book for Christians to read all the time because it tells us wise ways of reacting. Those ways aren't natural to us, but they are the ways God wants us to react so we don't get in trouble.
The Bible says it is not in man who walks to direct his steps. So our reactions have to be trained and the Bible trains us with words such as "a soft answer turns away wrath."
In the past if someone annoyed me, i'd get very angry but now if I catch myself I can catch the thought and the action and not let anyone push my buttons or play me like someone playing a computer game. You alone own your mind and you must be aware of not being used...or being played.
I'm always amazed at Christians who don't seem to realize that they should take all thoughts captive.
The bible is there to open our eyes to show how the world really works. The best way to train one's mind and to learn to take thoughts captive is to read the proverbs, the epistles, and other books of the Bible. It's easy to read Proverbs. It has 31 chapters, a chapter for each day of the month. So if today is the 11th, you read the 11th chapter of proverbs
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