When is it time to give up?

A sad day for me today. I had to face the fact that a couple of people whom I like personally, and who have done me some tremendous favors, are just not prepared to live in reality. They chronically behave foolishly, and they are going to keep doing it, and they will keep more or less continuously hurting themselves and others. And nothing I can say or do will stop them.

I know that (non-Calvinist) Christianity teaches that, since God won't take back the gift of free will, Hell itself is essentially the place to which people condemn themselves when even God gives up on them. The corollary: you have to recognize that sometimes there's just nothing you can do for people you love, though, since you're not God, your giving up on them is not tantamount to eternal damnation. But you have to hand them to God and walk away. "Love always hopes." Yet there is Hell. Some day I'll resolve the paradox, but tonight I'm too tired.

My friends will one day, I hope, by God's grace, be brought to a place where they can see the things that right now they can't allow themselves to see. But for now, the more I say, the more harm I will do. So I just have to let them go.

Prayer is better than talking, anyway, I suppose. I keep forgetting that I'm really not important except insofar as God can get some use out of me, and He can use my prayers as much as my (self-perceived) eloquence.

But it still makes me sad.

(Or maybe I just shouldn't've had that second beer.)