I've decided I'm ready to set myself up for a little more disappointment. Sounds stupid? I know, but hear me out. Things in life have made me very cynical. I've become a person that expects the worse from people. The benefit to me was that I'm never disappointed in people because I was always prepared for the worst. The problem is that it also makes you very unhappy with people and somewhat isolated. I've wanted to live on an island with one ferry in and major security checks before anyone can enter my island.
I was watching a TV show the other night where the main character is a real jerk to everyone all the time. He always expected the worst from people and never gave anyone the benefit of the doubt. However, he was very good at his job and that was his appeal to people. I realized that, if not for that talent, he would have no friends at all and be very miserable. Someone finally said to him, "I would rather go through life expecting good from people and being disappointed every once in a while than to just always expect the worst."
The Bible is clear and I've posted on it before, a person that keeps friendships and close relationships with fools will suffer because those fools will use them and burn them for their benefit. And fools who have nothing to lose are the scariest because I have worked hard and God has blessed me with so much that I could lose. I know who those people are, and my feelings there won't change. But, I don't want to go through life assuming everyone else I meet is on that list until they prove to me they're not. I want to go through life assuming they're good until they prove they are the fools the Bible is talking about. I want to enjoy people and life and assume they're good...and maybe be disappointed every once in a while.
2 years ago
3 comments:
Ahh now there's the man I fell in love with! Love you baby.
Did we grow up together or something? Purposeful or not, you just described me almost to a tee. Isolationism is a subject I’m somewhat familiar with. Borrowing your island/ferry analogy, my island inhabitants number less than 10… and truth be known, it’s probably closer to 5. Oh sure, I occasionally allow people to visit and play on the beach, but rarely grant invitations or extend visas allowing them to dwell in the inter sanctum beyond the tree line.
About a year ago, though, God nailed me on my attitude. In the peaks and valleys of a Christian’s walk, I was making my way out of a long deep valley when God revealed to me that I was being selfish. So for the first time in a long time, I opened myself up for relationships within my church, though I wasn’t being proactive and didn’t work to make it happen. While waiting for magical relationships to just “happen”, I made another discovery… Isolationism plagues the Christian Church, primarily Christian Men.
In an effort to become the Man God wanted/wants, I became proactive in the attempt to establish strong, meaningful relationships with Christian Men. I became the guy trying to penetrate the security checks and make my way onto the ferry of other men. It’s still a struggle and it may take a while for The Holy Spirit to remold what took me years to misshape.
While isolated, it’s real easy to forego accountability with sins of the heart such as anger, selfishness, sexual purity, to name a few.
I know...sometimes when you get burned a few times isolation is necessary for a while. But that isolation has to be time alone with God and time to regroup and re-evaluate who is friend and who is foe. This means you have to take steps to protect yourself from those that are foe (easy for me, hard for others) and allow yourself to trust people you don't have a reason not to 'yet' (hard for me, easy for others)...gotta find that biblical balance.
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