pdave.me

I’m in a mode right now.  I have been cleaning up my email life by “unsubscribing” from all kinds of stuff.  Restaurants, retailers, and random businesses are the latest victims to my shedding off of my email weight.  It’s not that I am boycotting them.  I’m just done.

This is going to sound petty, I’m tired of hearing notifications throughout the day that distract me for no good reason. I wasn’t even reading them anymore.  I was just tolerating them, discarding their info, and yet doing absolutely nothing about it.   

I’m taking back my email (even though most people don’t use it…most of my interaction takes place over social media). I’m done with superfluous crap that takes up time, attention, and screen space. 

So many of us are tolerant of ridiculous situations in our life that have claimed to much time, attention, and well, space in your life.  Like my ridiculous metaphor, I’m not asking you to boycott people per se.  I’m not asking you to unfriend/unfollow them (even though that’s necessary sometimes),  but it’s time to develop healthy boundaries in your life.  Proper boundaries aid you in keeping out unhealthy influences. They are about taking responsibility for our own lives.  Your marriage needs healthy boundaries.  Your kids need them.  Your personal life needs them.  Boundaries are necessary for a self-controlled, God-honoring life. And sometimes those boundaries are the necessary means to cut off the intimate connection to things/people who have no desire to help you but tear you down. 

James 2:1 (MSG) “My dear friends, don’t let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith.“

I want you to cut the umbilical cord that these things/people have been using to feed off of your joy. Scripture says “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” The goal of these things/people is to control you!  It’s time to keep your joy and say goodbye to the stuff you don’t need.

Today is your day to unsubscribe to these 6 types of people:

1. The Critical.  Aggressive and deadly.   These things/people have something to say about everything and cannot be happy for anyone else.  Unless the idea and/or solution came from them, it’s not worth entertaining.  These type of people have something crass to say about everything…even if it’s a little jab.  They cannot help but be critical.

2. The Discouragement. From people, to news outlets, discouragement is everywhere.  Sometimes it’s not as aggressive as the critical. Discouragement’s M.O. tends to be a slow death to your joy.  It constantly whittles away at your joy.  Think of having a full pool.  The more you entertain discouragement in your life, the more it is emptying the pool out till you have nothing left but a hole in the ground.  An empty pool is purposeless.  And that’s what a lifestyle of entertaining discouragement feels like…purposeless.

3. The Drama.  People with drama issues love company.  Why?  Without the company of others, it’s just a one-person show.  And, usually, that’s a tough thing to pull off.  Drama sucks you in to not just a story-line, but desires you to take on a role.  To entertain drama in your life is like attending a casting call and your are the director’s favorite choice for the part.  Back away. Let the curtains close.  This part is not for you.

4. The Campaigner. Call them gossips and/or slanderers.  This is a close cousin to “drama.” The difference is, these are people who don’t necessarily want to pull you into the drama.  It’s just they can’t keep their mouth shut about information they’ve come across.  Like having poison ivy, they’re trying to itch what they have whilst spreading it around.   It feels good to get info.  In fact, you feel powerful.  But in the end, you wind up realizing what you possess not only poisons your mind, it poisons your relationships.

5. The Instigator.  They know what button to press.  They know when to press it.  Like Buddy the Elf in the elevator of the Empire State Building, The Instigator wants to press as many buttons in your life and then step away while you sit in your hurt, anger, frustration, and/or embarrassment.  These people want to start a fire without the responsibility of dealing with the fire.  They are relational arsonists.   Smokey the Bear says “only you can prevent forest fires.” I’d say, “Only you can prevent the spread of relational fires.”

6. The One-Upper. The “One-Upper” will never let you be in a place of joy because what you have doesn’t compare to what they possess.  You can’t share celebration points, success stories, and/or the blessings God has given to this person.  Why?  Because they’re prepared to squash it.  He/she cannot handle letting someone have something he/she doesn’t possess.  The catastrophic results to your life is the more your joy is stifled, the more apt that your joy will be completely blown out. 

I’m not asking you to stop influencing people like these 6.  Like you and me, they are candidates of the redemptive power of Christ.  Like you and me they’re imperfect and need to see the continual work of the Holy Spirit to help them ever single day.  But it’s time to unsubscribe to their influence. It’s time to stop giving them the time, attention, and space in your life.  As I said before, I want you to cut the umbilical cord that these things/people have been using to feed off of your joy.  Why? Because what influences affects “how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith.“

It’s time to unsubscribe.  It’s time to take back your life.  

Thanks for letting me ramble…