Don’t be an absolutist. The Lord has been working on me with that one, for a long, long time. I still have to catch myself constantly, the urge to sink into absolutism is still there.
Absolutism is a bit of melodrama, an emotional response that tricks your brain into believing things like, ALL people are like that, this is going to happen EVERY single time, there is no good in the world, NONE. It knows what it knows and slams the door on any other possibilities.
I can blame my mother for that one, she is a total absolutist. In fact, if you attempt to launch even the gentlest correction, she gets angry. So ALL dentists are like that and she won’t go to one. Or EVERY single time you try something it’s going to fail. NOTHING good can ever come of this. There is not ONE, not EVER,and so it goes in life, with EVERY single thing. ALWAYS.
Today I can look at my mama with a lot of grace and mercy, forgive her for having implanted this defect in me, while at the same time recognizing it as all wrongheaded, damaging, not a healthy way to perceive the world at all. With billions of people on the planet, a number of possibilities so infinite we can hardly calculate them all, it’s quite irrational to believe in our own ALWAYS, EVERY, and NEVERS.
Not long ago I heard a dad say, he didn’t let his kids use those words because of the mindset they can create, the absolutism and sense of fatality. I love how God arranges for me to hear exactly what I need to hear at just the right time, because those words ministered to my soul, they were validating. That’s what love is, it helps you avoid pitfalls and absolutism is a pitfall that can create a lot of deception and despair.
I think it’s a tricky one in parenthood sometimes because we say things like EVERY time you touch the stove it is going to hurt you. EVERY time you run into traffic you risk death. We don’t want you to ponder other possibilities, or to be open to the idea that you may survive a close encounter with a shark, because we want you to be careful.
I hope I did not pass the misery along to my own children, but if I did, I am so sorry, repent, recant, and change the narrative. Absolitism is terrible way to live and it’s a deception.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Absolutely agree lol 😉
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Thanks. 🙂
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I call that kind of distorted thinking “misfortune-telling”.
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Oh, I like that, “misfortune telling.” 🙂
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The timing on this couldn’t be better, I had a conversation about the very same thing earlier today
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Amen. 🙂
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Many years ago I asked a girl out on a date, which led to a third-degree questioning by her entire living family (at least it seemed that way). When I went to pick her up, she asked me to come inside, and there was literally a chair in the middle of the living room surrounded by probably 8 or 10 family members (or friends, I don’t really know). The only question I remember came from her father, and it was the very first question I was asked: “Do you drink?” I answered, “Uh, no sir. Never have.” Then he said, “Well, you are a Baptist, right?”
The girl’s father assumed I drank alcohol because A) drinking was a sin, and B) we Baptists believe in eternal security, so C) all Baptists must drink because we supposedly believe we can sin all we want and still remain saved.
I’d say he was an absolutist. But he was also a member of a Jesus-Only group of Pentecostals, so he obviously had no idea what he was talking about. 😉
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Ha! It’s always fun to be interrogated,judged,and blamed, especially when they don’t even get it right. When my oldest daughter got married, her poor husband probably had no idea what he was walking into. I think the fiddle music from Deliverance was actually playing in the background.
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Sir, speaking of absolutism, not EVERY Jesus name Pentecostal thinks that way. Present company included. 😮 And we are not Jesus only. We are Jesus everything!
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A point of logic: if it is “Jesus Everything”, that means there is no room left for anyone else. Therefore, “Jesus Only”.
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This is not the place to go into a lengthy Christology. If you’d like to come over and have a discussion with me, I’d be happy to on either my main blog, Glorious Wife or my 2nd one, Improbable Faith. However, just a comment that Jesus Everything means, It’s All in Him. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Colossians 2:9. He is the I AM (singular) who was on Mount Horeb with Moses. The Jesus Only appellation seems to imply we do not believe in the Father or the Holy Ghost, but we do. We believe that all three are manifestations, not persons, of the Holy One, the Living invisible God.
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Forgive me for butting in here, but what is a “Jesus-Only Pentecostal”? Never heard that term before…
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See my brief explanation above.
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Thx…is that the same as “Oneness Pentacostal”? That’s a term I’ve heard before, although I don’t know what it means either!
Just curious…
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Yes, that’s what I am. Apostolic Pentecostal, AKA Oneness. Apostolic in doctrine, pentecostal in experience, that is Upper Room.
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John Gray, the relationship counselor and author, noted that women tend to become global at a certain point in their menstrual cycle. He was cautioning guys that when the global “every time” and “always” and “never” and “everywhere” accusations start flying, to check the calendar and put their mind in neutral for a few days. Then the global goes away. My experience is that he was more right than wrong.
No one can ever be anything more than their brain chemistry will let them be. Nuanced thinking requires the ability to hold onto a thought and think it through many steps out into the future (if A, then B, else C, for many steps downline from B and C). Those who cannot do this cannot think in nuanced ways. All they are left with, the main things they can perceive, are absolutes. You don’t think a certain way because you belong to Christian Sect A. Rather, you are attracted to Christian Sect A because it consists of others whose thinking ability is similar to yours. That holds for everything from which Christian sect we associate with to what jobs we are attracted to.
Two things: people have a right to be who they are, and – with only a few exceptions – people cannot be anything other than who they are. Once that is understoods, strategies for dealing with it can be developed.
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LOL! Hormonal globalism? Well, that’s an interesting idea at least. Might be worth exploring.
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What you said is absolutely true, IB…no, wait, that statement cannot be absolutely true. There are no absolutes…but that’s an absolute…help! I’ll never get this right! 🙂
Seriously, good points. Peter Enns put out a book called, “The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our Correct Beliefs.” I think the title says it all.
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The only absolute is God and His Word. Christ, the Solid Rock.
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Amen,Pam! God is Holy, steadfast, kind, so for Him absolutism is probably a whole other matter. 🙂
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They taught us (advised? I mean, did it stick? I have an impossibly thick skull. lol) not to speak in absolutes at marriage camp.
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I remember many, many years ago listening to an interview on the radio — I can’t recall the names of either the interviewer or the interviewee, or even the topic they were discussing — but the one thing I do recall is that the interviewer kept lobbing softball questions at the interviewee, the sort of questions designed to elicit a simple yes-or-no response, and the interviewee replied to every question by saying, with great conviction, “Absolutely!!” After a few minutes of this, the interviewer actually asked a question that was not amenable to a yes-or-no (or “Absolutely!!) answer, a question that demanded a more complex and thoughtful response. At this point the interviewee hesitated a moment, then prefaced her answer by saying, “Well, I try to avoid thinking or speaking in absolutes….”
Still cracks me up, all these years later.
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Ha! That’s a great tale. Sounds like something I would do. 🙂
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Amen! Brilliant as always, and so true. Life without second chances, especially for GOOD, is defeating.
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