Being is Becoming by Un-Becoming...

And you learn that love, true love,

always has joys and sorrow,

seems ever present,

yet is never quite the same,

becoming more than love,

and less than love,

so difficult to define.

And you learn that through it all,

you really can endure,

that you really are strong,

that you do have value.

- Anon

"Not unlike mankind in general, but especially for the Christian who is blood-bought through Christ, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, the process of "putting off" the ills and harms and toxicities of this life must be compensatory. Without the living God exploding the inner worlds of our former unrepentant self there can be no becoming. What stubbornly wishes to remain is the unrepentant "old man" of our former self living with its uncrucified lies and misspent beliefs before the saving God of grace who must be allowed in to cut out our prideful passions and idolizing sense of self and being.

"The Christian life then, is ultimately one of growth through difficult personal struggles against the lies we have grown up with about ourselves and others. Of un-becoming what once was in order to realize, or become, the child of God in the image of Christ, our Lord and Savior. It is a lifelong process that is as hard as it is fulfilling. As difficult to let go of the "old man" as it is difficult to put on the "new man." But we are empowered by the Holy Spirit of God who wishes to cleanse all that we are as blood-bathed sacrifices, and holy altars, or temples, to the living God. Who are become the body of Christ, the bride of the Lamb, and redeemed of the Lord. Eh, verily, Lord, come."

- R.E. Slater, On becoming a "New Man"

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"The ontic sense of being is not static but ever changing, or moving, towards something, or away from something, in the present tense of time. With time and distance one's being may be discerned as to its change and movement from what once was to what now is. 

"There is no future sense of being without the accompanying movement of becoming (either less or more from something or towards something). And if there is no becoming than there can be no being. This is as true for God in relationship to His creation as it is for man himself in relation to his Creator.

"The sense of redemption in this world then is the sense of becoming and not static being. It carries both heaven and hell in its epistolary movement either towards the Creator-God or away from the Redeemer of mankind, and even this world itself."

- R.E. Slater, A Sense of Self

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In philosophy, the concept of becoming was born in eastern ancient Greece by the philosopher Heraclitus of Hephesus, who in the Sixth century BC, said that nothing in this world is constant except change and becoming. - Wikipedia

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Clemens Alexandrinus (Stromata, v, 105). Similar: Plutarchus (De animae procreatione, 5 p, 1014 A) concerning Heraclitus: This universal order, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures. -Wikipedia

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German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that Heraclitus "will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction".[3] Nietzsche developed the vision of a chaotic world in perpetual change and becoming. The state  of becoming does not produce fixed entities, such as being, subject, object, substance, thing. These false concepts are the necessary mistakes which consciousness and language employ in order to interpret the chaos of the state of becoming. The mistake of Greek philosophers was to falsify the testimony of the senses and negate the evidence of the state of becoming. By postulating being as the underlying reality of the world, they constructed a comfortable and reassuring "after-world" where the horror of the process of becoming was forgotten, and the empty abstractions of reason appeared as eternal entities. - Wikipedia

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Popular Quotes on Becoming

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/becoming/

“Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was a choice, but falling in love with you I had no control over.” - Anon

“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues it possesses” - Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (American Poet, Lecturer and Essayist, 1803-1882)

“The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being.” - Albert Einstein quotes (German born American Physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.

“You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay? Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” - Jim Rohn quotes (American Speaker and Author. He is famous for motivational audio programs for Business and Life. )

“Nothing is, everything is becoming.” - Heraclitus of Ephesus quotes (Greek philosopher remembered for his cosmology, 540-480BC)

“Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.” - Zig Ziglar quotes (American motivational Speaker and Author. )

“When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self.” - Confucius quotes (China's most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, 551-479 BC)

“There is no knowledge of true being. The world is fundamentally in a state of becoming.” - Friedrich Nietzsche quotes (German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture, 1844-1900.)

“I've always thought respectable people scoundrels, and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel.” - Bertrand Russell quotes (English Logician and Philosopher 1872-1970)

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” - Anais Nin quotes (French born American Author of novels and short stories, 1903-1977)

“Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards. When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming.” - Anthony Robbins quotes (American advisor to leaders)

“If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes (German Playwright, Poet, Novelist and Dramatist. 1749-1832)

“Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive.” - Scott Adams quotes (American Cartoonist, b.1957)

And you learn that love, true love,

always has joys and sorrow,

seems ever present,

yet is never quite the same,

becoming more than love,

and less than love,

so difficult to define.

And you learn that through it all,

you really can endure,

that you really are strong,

that you do have value.

- Anon

“I'm becoming more and more myself with time. I guess that's what grace is. The refinement of your soul through time.” - Jewel quotes (American Singer, Songwriter and Guitarist, b.1974)

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you” - Dale Carnegie quotes (American lecturer, author, 1888-1955)

“What is passion? It is surely the becoming of a person. Are we not, for most of our lives, marking time? Most of our being is at rest, unlived. In passion, the body and the spirit seek expression outside of self. Passion is all that is other from self. Sex is only interesting when it releases passion. The more extreme and the more expressed that passion is, the more unbearable does life seem without it. It reminds us that if passion dies or is denied, we are partly dead and that soon, come what may, we will be wholly so.” - John Boorman quotes (British motion-picture director, b.1933)

“We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machine we have created to serve us” - John Kenneth Galbraith quotes

“''Reason'' is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.” - Friedrich Nietzsche quotes (German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture, 1844-1900.)

“Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.” - Julius Charles Hare quotes

go to this link here for more sayings and quotes on becoming

go to this link here for bible verses on becoming

Book Review - The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, Part 2

Milky Way on Leslie Gulch Reservoir, Owyhees, Idaho

A few weeks ago I made the following observations:

"God is holy. God is good. God is love. But the greatest of these is love. Love is how God makes one holy and good through Jesus. Not of human will but divine.

God's love cannot be preached enough. All Christian doctrine must proceed on God's love. All missions of the church must go at this sublime thought. No other church dogma must be higher than the grace of God. And all church doctrine must revolve around this one thought.

The holiness of God is meaningless without the grace of God. The goodness of God has no affect if it isn't bathed in God's atoning grace. Holiness without grace is austere. It proceeds in judgment first, last, and always. Goodness is without effect if not given in love. It is wholly utilitarian and bare of God's mindful relation to His creation if not met in love.

The love of God is the most sufficient descriptor of the Christian faith, of God Himself, and God's relationship to His creation. None else may proceed above this thought."

- R.E. Slater, June 2, 2014

In due consideration of today's article I think it is important to remind ourselves that open and relational theology rests in the entirety of its subject upon this sublime thought. Should it stray even an iota from the love of God than it ventures from the intentional (and some will now say, insistent) heart of God into the schemes and pretensions of men and their doctrines.

Today's article will be one of several to come. Here, we focus on what is meant by open and relational theologies when speaking to the subject of God's {open and relational} divine providence.

We will continue to discuss this important subject in the days and weeks to come.

Enjoy,

R.E. Slater
June 23, 2014

The God Who Risks

The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence

Book Blurb

If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, can he in any way be vulnerable to his creation? Can God be in control of anything at all if he is not constantly in control of everything? John Sanders says yes to both of these questions. In The God Who Risks, he mounts a careful and challenging argument for positive answers to both of these profound theological questions. In this thoroughly revised edition, Sanders clarifies his position and responds to his critics. His book will not only contribute to serious ongoing theological discussion but will enlighten pastors and laypersons who struggle with questions about suffering, evil and human free will.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Problems with Sanders’s View of Providence:

Points of Disagreement

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/problems_with_sanderss_view_of_providence/#.U83mCvldVrP

by Thomas Jay Oord

July 21, 2014

My friend, John Sanders, has written a powerful proposal for understanding God’s providence. As an open and relational theologian myself, I agree with much of it. But there’s a key problem with his view...

In a recent blog, I summarized Sanders’s version of open and relational theology. I agreed with all I put in my summary of Sanders, which comes from his immensely important book, The God Who Risks. My in-depth study of Sanders’s work is part of a book project of my own, made possible in part by a grant from the Randomness and Providence project.

I also want to say before noting our differences that John Sanders and I are good friends. I consider John a fine scholar and exemplary Christian.

My disagreement with Sanders is over theological points. We both endorse main themes of open and relational theology, and we agree on so much. But our disagreement is over an important set of issues: power, love, and evil.

According to Sanders, God Permits Evil

My central disagreement pertains to how Sanders views the relation between God’s love and power. I disagree with Sanders when he says God allows or permits genuine evil.

In The God Who Risks, Sanders often says God permits evil when it could have been prevented (all quotations in this blog come from that book). “Evil is allowed but not desired by God,” he says. “God permits things to happen, both good and bad, that he does not specifically intend.” General sovereignty “allows for pointless evil.” And “God has the power to prevent sin and evil from coming about.”

When Sanders talks about evil, he apparently means genuine evil. Genuine evils have no specific purpose; they are gratuitous. “Some evil is simply pointless because it does not serve to achieve any greater good,” says Sanders. “Horrible events happen that God did not want to occur.”

But God has a reason for not preventing gratuitous evil, says Sanders. The reason has to do with “the nature of the divine project.” The divine project involves what Sanders calls “general sovereignty.” God’s general sovereignty “does not allow for each and every such evil to be explained,” because “God is only responsible for the structures within which we operate and for those specific acts in history God elects to do.” God’s creational project makes possible the structures of existence in which evil and suffering could occur. But according to Sanders, God does not directly intend or cause evil.

God is ultimately responsible for evil, according to Sanders. “It may be said that God, in permitting significant others who have in fact done evil, takes responsibility for creating a world in which such evil could obtain. But God cannot be blamed for the actual evil of the creatures, since God did not intend it.” Here, Sanders seems to distinguish between God’s ultimate decision to create the universe and the belief that God did not want particular evils.

Is God Like a Parent or Teacher? - No

A critic might respond that the God Sanders describes does not act like a loving parent, let alone a perfectly loving God. A loving mother would prevent pointless harm to her child, if she were able. She would not stand by and allow others to assault her child.

While God acts like a loving parent in some respects, says Sanders, God acts differently in others. “Unlike a human parent, God is uniquely responsible for upholding the ontological, moral, and relational structures of the universe.” In other words, God does not prevent genuine evil in specific cases, because God is concerned about the whole.

Sanders also believes God does not act like a teacher whom we might think should halt trouble in the chaotic classroom. For instance, we might think a loving teacher, if he were able, would prevent one student from bullying another. Bullying is an evil we would want to thwart.

In response to the classroom analogy, Sanders says the almighty God “could veto any specific act.” But if God “made a habit of it, then he would turn the beloved into an automaton and thus find himself alone,” says Sanders. “God cannot prevent all the evil in the world and still maintain the condition of fellowship intended by his overarching purpose in creation.” Again, Sanders believes God fails to prevent specific evils, because God has to manage the entire universe.

Notice that Sanders talks about God “making a habit” of vetoing specific acts. This suggests he believes God can and perhaps does occasionally veto acts by controlling others or situations. He says, for instance, “in the God-human relationship, God sometimes decides alone what will happen.” There are “specific acts in history God elects to do.” “Sometimes God unilaterally decides what shall be...” And “there are some things that the almighty God retains the right to enact unilaterally.” Assuming God acts in relation to creatures, the specific divine actions Sanders mentions in these quotations seem to require God to control creatures completely.

We might summarize Sanders’s overall explanation in this way: God decided to create a world in which free creatures might exist and enjoy unforced relationship. Sometimes, however, free creatures do evil. God has the capacity to determine specific acts unilaterally, thereby preventing genuine evil. But God does not usually do so, which means God voluntarily chooses not to prevent evil. God allows it. Controlling others too often would result in a world of robots instead of free creatures.

What Would Victims Say to Sanders’s Proposal?

If I have summarized Sanders’s view correctly, I wonder how the victims of atrocious evils would respond to it. How would the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing respond? What would parents whose child was born with severe disabilities think of it? Or how would victims of rape and murder respond to Sander’s explanation of evil?

I doubt any of these people would find satisfying Sanders’s view that God permits evil that God could have stopped. I do not.

Sanders’s view says God could prevent these instances of evil. But God chooses not to do so. God’s choosing to allow genuine evils is somehow for the good of overall creation. “God elects not to renege on the conditions he established,” to use Sanders’s words. Instead of preventing these evil events, God chooses to “maintain the conditions of fellowship intended by his overarching purpose in creation.” Sanders seems to believe God cannot maintain creation’s overall purpose and prevent individual evil.

We need to listen first to the stories of the victims.

Sanders Says God Voluntarily Restrains from Preventing Evil

Sanders believes God’s failure to prevent evil derives from God’s voluntary commitments. “God does not give up power,” says Sanders, “but he does promise to adhere to the creational structures he made.” And this “divine self-restraint should be understood as the restraint of love in concern for his creatures.”

But this voluntary self-restraint does not sound loving to me!

I doubt God’s alleged self-restraint would sound loving to rape victims and others who endure genuine evil. I cannot imagine God, “I could have prevented your rape, but I voluntarily restrained myself from doing so. I didn’t stop those who violated you, because I am the perfect lover.”

I’m sure most victims of genuine evil think real concern would mean preventing the evil they endured, if prevention had been possible. And Sanders believes God could have prevented these evils, stopped their horrific suffering instantly. The sovereign and loving God who could enact some things unilaterally, as Sanders puts it, should avert pointless misery and death. The God who can veto any specific act should veto acts of genuine evil.

God sometimes “decides alone” or “unilaterally decides what shall be,” says Sanders. The God with the capacity to determine unilaterally, however, apparently has not believed the evil and suffering in the world and our personal lives were bad enough to prevent. Evidently, God’s preventing them would have been worse than allowing them. In my view, however, God’s failure to prevent genuine evil doesn’t sound like God is, as Sanders claims, “fundamentally opposed to sin, evil, and suffering.”

Do Genuine Evils Occur?

At stake is whether rape and the other atrocities are genuine evils. Genuine evils are events that, all things considered, make the world worse than it might have otherwise been. Sanders believes God allows pointless, gratuitous, or genuine evils, so he apparently thinks such evils occur. And he would likely say many atrocities we encounter are genuine evils.

The version of open and relational theology Sanders offers, however, does not actually consider these specific atrocities genuinely evil. His view implies that if God were to intervene and prevent them, God would be unloving.

Preventing the Boston Marathon bombing, for instance, would have been wrong. Love would not have been expressed were God to have prevented the actual rapes, murders, genocides, and incest we have witnessed in our world. God’s loving activity, according to Sanders, entails upholding the ontological, moral, and relational structures of the universe.

Preventing these specific atrocities, on his view, is not the way of love.

Sanders Seems to Offer a Best of All Possible Worlds Theodicy

Sanders’s position ends up sounding like a “best of all possible worlds” defense to the problem of evil. According to it, God allows evil because preventing it would undermine the good of the overall project. Sanders admits that many atrocities are “pointless evils” and “God does not have a specific purpose in mind for these occurrences.” But he also seems to believe “some evils are justified for some greater good.”

I find it difficult to imagine how God preventing rape and murder in any particular instance would throw out of balance the structures of the universe. I am not convinced the creation project requires God to allow genuine evils – including the Boston Marathon bombing, the debilitating condition of severely handicapped infants, the rape and murder of innocent women, and countless other atrocities.

This doesn’t sound to me like God desires, as Sanders alleges, to “bless them with all that is in their best interest.”

Sanders believes open and relational theology supports well the idea that we each have a personal relationship with God. I agree. But in these powerfully personal stories of suffering, tragedy, and evil, Sanders believes God allows atrocities for the good of the whole. His position emphasizes the whole and undermines the personal aspect of open and relational theology he elsewhere embraces.

In short, Sanders fails to solve the problem of evil. And the result is that we should wonder whether God loves perfectly after all.

Conclusion

Without a solution to the problem of evil, we cannot make sense of numerous events in our world. Sanders’s overall version of open and relational theology is largely helpful, and I agree with the majority of what he proposes. But it fails to answer well this crucial question: “Why doesn’t a powerful and loving God prevent all genuine evil, especially specific instances of horror in our personal lives?”

In the final segment of my exploration of Sanders’s view, I’ll show the key difference between his version of open and relational theology and mine. I think readers will be surprised by what I say. I’ll argue that Sanders’s doesn’t follow through when he correctly says love is God’s preeminent attribute.

- TJO

go to part 1 -

Book Review - The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, Part 1

go to part 2 - 

Book Review - The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, Part 2

go to part 3 - 

Book Review - The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, Part 3

6 Toxic Relationship Habits Most People Think Are Normal

6 Toxic Relationship Habits Most People Think Are Normal

http://markmanson.net/6-toxic-habits

by Mark Manson

There’s no class in high school on how to not be a shitty boyfriend or girlfriend. Sure, they teach us the biology of sex, the legality of marriage, and maybe read a few obscure love stories from the 19th century on how not to be.

But when it comes down to actually handling the nitty-gritty of relationships, we’re given no pointers… or worse, we’re given advice columns in women’s magazines.

Yes, it’s trial-and-error from the get-go. And if you’re like most people, it’s been mostly error.

But part of the problem is that many unhealthy relationship habits are baked into our culture. We worship romantic love — you know, that dizzying and irrational romantic love that somehow finds breaking china plates on the wall in a fit of tears somewhat endearing — and scoff at practicality or unconventional sexualities. Men and women are raised to objectify each other and to objectify the relationships they’re in. Thus our partners are often seen as assets rather than someone to share mutual emotional support.

A lot of the self help literature out there isn’t helpful either (no, men and women are not from different planets, you over-generalizing prick). And for most of us, mom and dad surely weren’t the best examples either.

Fortunately, there’s been a lot of psychological research into healthy and happy relationships the past few decades and there are some general principles that keep popping up consistently that most people are unaware of or don’t follow. In fact, some of these principles actually go against what is traditionally considered “romantic” or normal in a relationship.

Below are six of the most common tendencies in relationships that many couples think are healthy and normal, but are actually toxic and destroying everything you hold dear. Get the tissues ready.

1. The Relationship Scorecard

What It Is: The “keeping score” phenomenon is when someone you’re dating continues to blame you for past mistakes you made in the relationship. If both people in the relationship do this it devolves into what I call “the relationship scorecard,” where it becomes a battle to see who has screwed up the most over the months or years, and therefore who owes the other one more.

You were an asshole at Cynthia’s 28th birthday party back in 2010 and it has proceeded to ruin your life ever since. Why? Because there’s not a week that goes by that you’re not reminded of it. But that’s OK, because that time you caught her sending flirtatious text messages to her co-worker immediately removes her right to get jealous, so it’s kind of even, right?

Wrong.

Why It’s Toxic: The relationship scorecard develops over time because one or both people in a relationship use past wrongdoings in order to try and justify current righteousness. This is a double-whammy of suckage. Not only are you deflecting the current issue itself, but you’re ginning up guilt and bitterness from the past to manipulate your partner into feeling wrong in the present.

If this goes on long enough, both partners eventually spend most of their energy trying to prove that they’re less culpable than the other rather than solving the current problem. People spend all of their time trying to be less wrong for each other instead of being more right for each other.

What You Should Do Instead: Deal with issues individually unless they are legitimately connected. If someone habitually cheats, then that’s obviously a recurring problem. But the fact that she embarrassed you in 2010 and now she got sad and ignored you today in 2013 have nothing to do with each other, so don’t bring it up.

You must recognize that by choosing to be with your significant other, you are choosing to be with all of their prior actions and behaviors. If you don’t accept those, then ultimately, you are not accepting them. If something bothered you that much a year ago, you should have dealt with it a year ago.

2. Dropping “Hints” and Other Passive-Aggression

What It Is: Instead of stating a desire or thought overtly, your partner tries to nudge you in the right direction of figuring it out yourself. Instead of saying what’s actually upsetting you, you find small and petty ways to piss your partner off so you’ll then feel justified in complaining to them.

Why It’s Toxic: Because it shows that you two are not comfortable communicating openly and clearly with one another. A person has no reason to be passive-aggressive if they feel safe expressing any anger or insecurity within the relationship. A person will never feel a need to drop “hints” if they feel like they won’t be judged or criticized for it.

What You Should Do Instead: State your feelings and desires openly. And make it clear that the other person is not necessarily responsible or obligated to them but that you’d love to have their support. If they love you, they’ll almost always be able to give it.

3. Holding the Relationship Hostage

What It Is: When one person has a simple criticism or complaint and blackmails the other person by threatening the commitment of the relationship as a whole. For instance, if someone feels like you’ve been cold to them, instead of saying, “I feel like you’re being cold sometimes,” they will say, “I can’t date someone who is cold to me all of the time.”

Why It’s Toxic: It’s emotional blackmail and it creates tons of unnecessary drama. Every minor hiccup in the flow of the relationship results in a perceived commitment crisis. It’s crucial for both people in a relationship to know that negative thoughts and feelings can be communicated safely to one another without it threatening the relationship itself. Otherwise people will suppress their true thoughts and feelings which leads to an environment of distrust and manipulation.

What You Should Do Instead: It’s fine to get upset at your partner or to not like something about them. That’s called being a normal human being. But understand that committing to a person and always liking a person are not the same thing. One can be committed to someone and not like everything about them. One can be eternally devoted to someone yet actually be annoyed or angered by their partner at times. On the contrary, two partners who are capable of communicating feedback and criticism towards one another only without judgment or blackmail will strengthen their commitment to one another in the long-run.

4. Blaming Your Partner For Your Own Emotions

What It Is: Let’s say you’re having a crappy day and your partner isn’t exactly being super sympathetic or supportive at the moment. They’ve been on the phone all day with some people from work. They got distracted when you hugged them. You want to lay around at home together and just watch a movie tonight, but they have plans to go out and see their friends.

So you lash out at them for being so insensitive and callous toward you. You’ve been having a shitty day and they have done nothing about it. Sure, you never asked, but they should just know to make you feel better. They should have gotten off the phone and ditched their plans based on your lousy emotional state.

Why It’s Toxic: Blaming our partners for our emotions is a subtle form of selfishness, and a classic example of the poor maintenance of personal boundaries. When you set a precedent that your partner is responsible for how you feel at all times (and vice-versa), then will develop codependent tendencies. Suddenly, they’re not allowed to plan activities without checking with you first. All activities at home — even the mundane such as reading books or watching TV — must be negotiated and compromised. When someone begins to get upset, all personal desires go out the window because it is now your responsibility to make one another feel better.

The biggest problem of developing these codependent tendencies is that they breed resentment. Sure, if my girlfriend gets mad at me once because she’s had a shitty day and is frustrated and needs attention, that’s understandable. But if it becomes an expectation that my life revolves around her emotional well-being at all times, then I’m soon going to become very bitter and even manipulative towards her feelings and desires.

What You Should Do Instead: Take responsibility for your own emotions and expect your partner to be responsible for theirs. There’s a subtle yet important difference between being supportive of your partner and being obligated to your partner. Any sacrifices should be made as an autonomous choice and not seen as an expectation. As soon as both people in a relationship become culpable for each other’s moods and downswings, it gives them both incentives to hide their true feelings and manipulate one another.

5. Displays of “Loving” Jealousy

What It Is: Getting pissed off when your partner talks, flirts, touches, calls, texts, hangs out, or sneezes in the general vicinity of another person and then you proceed to take that anger out on your partner and attempt to control their behavior. This often leads to insano behaviors such as hacking into your partner’s email account, looking through their text messages while they’re in the shower or even following them around town and showing up unannounced when they’re not expecting you.

Why It’s Toxic: It surprises me that some people describe this as some sort of display of affection. They figure that if their partner wasn’t jealous then that would somehow mean that they weren’t loved by them.

This is absolutely clownshit crazy to me. It’s controlling and manipulative. It creates unnecessary drama and fighting. It transmits a message of a lack of trust in the other person. And to be honest, it’s demeaning. If my girlfriend cannot trust me to be around other attractive women by myself, then it implies that she believes that I’m either a) a liar, or b) incapable of controlling my impulses. In either case, that’s a woman I do not want to be dating.

What You Should Do Instead: Trust your partner. It’s a radical idea, I know. Some jealousy is natural. But excessive jealousy and controlling behaviors towards your partner are signs of your own feelings of unworthiness and you should learn to deal with them and not force them onto those close to you. Because otherwise you are only going to eventually push that person away.

6. Buying the Solutions to Relationship Problems

What It Is: Any time a major conflict or issue comes up in the relationship, instead of solving it, one covers it up with the excitement and good feelings that come with buying something nice or going on a trip somewhere.

My parents were experts at this one. And it got them real far: a big fat divorce and 15 years of hardly speaking to each other since. They have both since independently told me that this was the primary problem in their marriage: continuously covering up their real issues with superficial pleasures.

Why It’s Toxic: Not only does it brush the real problem under the rug (where it willalways re-emerge from even worse the next time), but it sets an unhealthy precedent within the relationship. This is not a gender-specific problem, but I will use the traditional gendered situation as an example. Let’s imagine that whenever a woman gets angry at her boyfriend/husband, the man “solves” the issue by buying the woman something nice, or taking her to a nice restaurant or something. Not only does this give the woman unconscious incentive to find more reasons to be upset with the man, but it also gives the man absolutely no incentive to actually be accountable for the problems in the relationship. So what do you end up with? A checked-out husband who feels like an ATM, and an incessantly bitter woman who feels unheard.

What You Should Do Instead: Actually, you know, deal with the problem. Trust was broken? Talk about what it will take to rebuild it. Someone feels ignored or unappreciated? Talk about ways to restore those feelings of appreciation. Communicate!

There’s nothing wrong with doing nice things for a significant other after a fight to show solidarity and to reaffirm commitment. But one should never use gifts or fancy things toreplace dealing with the underlying emotional issues. Gifts and trips are called luxuries for a reason, you only get to appreciate them when everything else is already good. If you use them to cover up your problems, then you will find yourself with a much bigger problem down the line.

Clayton Jennings - "What Will You Say?"

Clayton Jennings: What Will You Say? || Spoken Word

starts at 1:14 (8:18)

The Lord's Prayer

by Pianist Huntley Brown Live At McGregor Baptist Ft Myers FL

More songs by Clayton Jennings - 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=clayton+jennings

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What Will You Say?

bible verses (ESV)

Genesis 34:11

Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say to me I will give.

Genesis 34:12

Ask me for as great a bride price and gift as you will, and I will give whatever you say to me. Only give me the young woman to be my wife.”

Numbers 14:28

Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you:

Numbers 22:17

for I will surely do you great honor, and whatever you say to me I will do. Come, curse this people for me.’”

Numbers 22:19

So you, too, please stay here tonight, that I may know what more the Lord will say to me.”

1 Samuel 10:2

When you depart from me today, you will meet two men by Rachel's tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah, and they will say to you, ‘The donkeys that you went to seek are found, and now your father has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you, saying, “What shall I do about my son?”’

1 Samuel 20:4

Then Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you say, I will do for you.”

1 Kings 2:38

And Shimei said to the king, “What you say is good; as my lord the king has said, so will your servant do.” So Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days.

1 Kings 2:42

the king sent and summoned Shimei and said to him, “Did I not make you swear by the Lord and solemnly warn you, saying, ‘Know for certain that on the day you go out and go to any place whatever,you shall die’? And you said to me, ‘What you say is good; I will obey.’

2 Kings 10:5

So he who was over the palace, and he who was over the city, together with the elders and the guardians, sent to Jehu, saying, “We are your servants, and we will do all that you tell us. We will not make anyone king. Do whatever is good in your eyes.”

2 Kings 18:14

And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong; withdraw from me. Whatever you impose on me Iwill bear.” And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

1 Chronicles 21:11

So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Choose what you will:

2 Chronicles 20:37

Then Eliezer the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, “Becauseyou have joined with Ahaziah, the Lord will destroy what you have made.” And the ships were wrecked and were not able to go to Tarshish.

Job 9:12

Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back? Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

Jeremiah 13:21

What will you say when they set as head over you those whom you yourself have taught to be friends to you? Will not pangs take hold of you like those of a woman in labor?

Jeremiah 15:19

Therefore thus says the Lord: “If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless,you shall be as my mouth. They shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them.

Jeremiah 23:33

“When one of this people, or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden, and I will cast you off, declares the Lord.’

Jeremiah 38:25

If the officials hear that I have spoken with you and come to you and say to you, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you; hide nothing from us and we will not put you to death,’

Jeremiah 42:20

that you have gone astray at the cost of your lives. For you sent me to the Lord your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to the Lord our God, and whatever the Lord our God says declare to us and we will do it.’

Ezekiel 33:31

And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain.

Ezekiel 33:32

And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it.

Ezekiel 37:18

And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not tell us what you mean by these?’

Daniel 4:35

all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”

Hosea 14:2

Take with you words and return to the Lord; say to him, “Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.

Zechariah 13:6

And if one asks him, ‘What are these wounds on your back?’ he will say, ‘The wounds I received in the house of my friends.’

Matthew 10:19

When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.

Matthew 21:21

And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen.

Matthew 24:3

[ Signs of the End of the Age ] As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately,saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Matthew 26:13

Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”

Mark 3:28

“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter,

Mark 11:23

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he say swill come to pass, it will be done for him.

Mark 14:9

And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

Luke 10:35

And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’

Luke 12:12

for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

John 7:36

What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”

John 11:56

They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?”

John 16:17

So some of his disciples said to one another, “Whatis this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?”

John 16:19

Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are asking yourselves,what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’?

John 16:23

In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.

John 21:23

So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”

Acts 7:49

“‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest?

Romans 9:20

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”

1 Corinthians 11:22

What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.

2 Timothy 2:7

Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.