A prayer for protection

The seating arrangement became eerie.  I felt a hand squeeze my upper arm, and I turned toward the man on my right.  With his head tilted completely sideways and his chest leaning forward, his neck was twisted tightly to glare up at me.  His ogling eyes zoomed further in my direction, and I was soon uncomfortable.  His mouth was moving, and I assumed he wanted to say something, though I could hear only a scratchy sound.  Some kind of a high pitch filtered softly through his voice.  Looking at him, I shook my head to indicate I did not understand.  Then I returned my gaze to the front of the bus.  Yet the murmur of his voice continued, and I felt another nudge of his leg.  I had tried to ignore the first nudge, in hope that it was unintentional.   Now I looked at the man again, and the whole aura was becoming even more disconcerting.  His almost ethereal whisper pressed louder as he said, “Come on! You got to have 50 cents!”  I motioned with my hand and verbally emphasized “No” and likewise shook my head.  And silently I asked the Lord to protect me.  My eyes quickly scanned the bus for options.  Hardly a seat was vacant for moving away from the man, as we’d hosted an active turnstile of passengers.  The man's increasingly invasive ways seemed unending.  Finally, I walked up to ask the driver if my stop would be announced.  I didn’t want to make a mistake my first time on this route.  Turns out the driver was quite the conversationalist, lending me to stand near him till reaching my stop.  I figured God used the driver to deliver me.  …  Overall, my distinct impression was that Satan was messing with me.  For 4 years, God has used our city buses to connect me with people for His wonderful purposes.  What God uses for good, Satan can attempt to use for bad.  Here now I did not want the bad to dissuade me from fulfilling my call.  Subsequent to this particularly unfun incident, a different bus trip led me to the immense pleasure of telling someone about Jesus.  I do realize there may be a day when my bus trips cease.  But not this week.