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betrayal, blogging, faith, fear, insanitybytes22, relationships
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Betrayals, good grief, those sure are painful, aren’t they? I now consider myself a professional, well earned at the school of hard knocks. I’m a bit bruised, I’m telling you. My favorite is when you hit bottom and then take a deep breath as if to say, whew we’ve landed. At least we can’t plunge any lower. Then the floor opens up and oops, false bottom.
Now that’s a betrayal of trust.
Something I’ve been taking apart, in the Bible it says, “let your yes be yes and your no be no.” You can’t do that if you haven’t got any self control, a fruit of the spirit. Actively using addicts for example, well their promises often have less substance then the breath they used to say them.
When people don’t do what they say they’re going to do, that’s a betrayal of trust.
Don’t confuse “self control,” with people who can control themselves. Very subtle difference there, but control is rooted in fear, fruit is rooted in love. Sociopaths and other assorted evil characters can control themselves, because it benefits them to do so. So can terrified people. People in a state of fear or pain will often say anything to make it stop, so fear prevents your yes from being yes and your no being no.
Perfect love casts out fear.
We don’t let small children sign contracts or allow people with major cognitive challenges to manage their own affairs. It’s a given that these people are unable to consent and to understand all the implications. So their yes cannot be a yes, their no cannot be a no, and we legally recognize it would actually be cruel to put an unrealistic expectation on them, one they cannot possibly be morally held accountable for.
That’s the legal side of things, but emotionally and spiritually I think the same concept applies. Various people due to their own toxicity, relationship dysfunction, lack of self awareness, fear, whatever, simply cannot practice the fruit of self control.
In other words, they cannot consent to my expectation that their yes will be yes and their no a no. So if they disappoint me, it’s because I’ve placed an unrealistic expectation on them. Let me clarify here, not a wrong expectation, nor a particularly demanding one, simply an unrealistic expectation in the sense that the person is incapable of meeting my needs.
Or perhaps put another way, I’m trying squeeze competency out of an incompetent. If someone is incapable of ruling over their own spirit, then I should grant them very little influence over mine.
The Book of James is beautiful and teaches us many wonderful things, but one that is significant in my life is why do you have strife, envy, conflict, relationship dysfunction? Unmet needs. Unfulfilled desires. Expecting others to do for us, what only God can. That’s a complete paraphrase by the way, but that is what James has really taught me personally.
My needs are perfectly reasonable and valid, too. I just want to reiterate that point. What makes them unrealistic is only that I try to place them on people incapable of responding as they should.
Something I really loved from church on Sunday, James calls us all adulterers. Why would he do that? Where is the good news in adultery? Ahh, because the accusation of adultery assumes there is a covenant relationship. God has a claim on us, He has an expectation, an investment, a contract, a marriage if you will. To be accused of adultery is by it’s very nature, evidence of belonging to Someone who has made an investment in you.
We are speaking of emotional betrayals, family, friends, churches, not necessarily literal adultery, but spiritual adultery. Adultery is a great analogy for the nature of betrayals
I have a hard time managing this paradox between practicing the self protective bigotry of having no expectations of people what so ever, versus having some gentle expectations that are sure to crush my heart with searing disappointment.
Because we are an adulteress people, indeed.
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See, there's this thing called biology... 
I find people self-interested and unreliable- some will surprise me and for that, I can be immensely grateful- Whenever I am disturbed it is due to my lack of acceptance to what is…like the impending winter -I’ll likely be forced into accepting that one. Oh I am also self-interested and only reliable when it serves my interests–Keep them coming, IB, I am entertained
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Thank you for your kind words. Ha! I too am not in an accepting frame of mind as to the impending winter. It is what it is, but completely unacceptable, just the same.
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“Don’t confuse “self control,” with people who can control themselves. Very subtle difference there, but control is rooted in fear, fruit is rooted in love. Sociopaths and other assorted evil characters can control themselves, because it benefits them to do so.”
Very true. We seem to be tracking here. I recently wrote on something similar. 🙂 Also, this Sunday we had a guest speaker who wrote a book titled, “Ultimate Betrayal” where he writes about his and his wife’s journey to forgiveness and grace after his daughter was murdered by her husband after only being married for a few months. THAT would be hard! He not only forgave his son-in-law but the son-in-law received Christ in prison shortly after. A lot of his receiving Christ was because of the grace and mercy he received from the girl’s father. Pretty amazing story.
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Oh, powerful story, Mel! I’ve been thinking a lot about how so many of us just don’t understand grace and mercy until we receive it ourselves, until we see it demonstrated by others towards us. That’s our job as Christians, to model Christ’s love! Heck, most of us can’t even do that on social media with complete strangers who haven’t actually hurt us in any genuine way. Arrrgggg…
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“We don’t let small children sign contracts or allow people with major cognitive challenges to manage their own affairs. It’s a given that these people are unable to consent and to understand all the implications.”
This is very true IB, so why is it all religions target children with their religious mandates when they cannot possibly understand the implications?
“People in a state of fear or pain will often say anything to make it stop, so fear prevents your yes from being yes and your no being no.”
Your own words, and In this case children and some adults may be in fear and commit to religious influences, this is a part of what indoctrination relies on, and how damaging this must be?
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Well, I do not believe ALL religions target children with their religious mandates. One thing I love about Jesus, He also taught about the horrors of religious mandates. 1 John 4:18 tells us, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
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I understand that children are told that God is watching them all the time and of course for a child that sort of stuff could be very distressing, especially as they will consequently be exposed to the concept of heaven and hell. This is quite a lot more of a stressful punishment than Father Christmas not delivering presents to bad children.
Christianity also targets children in a big way, and it is an invention of theists to deny this. What do you think religiously sponsored schools, the Church Sunday Schools and Christian school holiday camps are really in aide of? This is a major recruiting tool that is used to keep the dwindling numbers up.
Fear and love have no relationship and are almost opposites, if you fear someone may cause you harm you have no trust and consequently you do not have love for them. If you do not leave them you are either scared they will hunt you down and kill you or you are extremely insecure.
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Fear and love are indeed, opposites. See, you and I do agree on some things.
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We are getting somewhere then IB!
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So much folly and so much forgiveness needed…how we need God’s grace to also forgive!
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