Strengthened Tolerance

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INTRO

Being a calm and collected person around people that are different than you is a great way to obtain strengthened tolerance. For me, growing up I was surrounded by many people with a critical, joking, and offensive spirit. Whether it was at the lunch table, at work, with friends, casual games of Ultimate frisbee, and more, what people would call toxic today, was just life as usual.

Hearing profanity, offensive jokes, things that make you shake your head, and everybody around you is laughing it off, I often wondered why I was always around these people, or how they kept finding me. When I became a Christian, I realized many were different than these and it was a breath of fresh air at first, but many times these behaviors did show themselves again in these Christians, it’s just they were really good at hiding it.

I realize now that God was placing me around these people to help Him reach these souls. I had obtained the proper tolerances to deal with their antics while still keeping the peace with them and bringing up Christ and the tough topics. Even at times when I would get mocked or attacked into oblivion, I would keep a grin on my face and play along. Naturally, these ones while not agreeing with my beliefs ended up really liking me anyway because I didn’t judge and disappear and accepted them as they were.

THE PROBLEM

The problem now is when I meet those that don’t have such conditioned tolerances. In YWAM, I found this out several times. There was a student that struggled with critical depression and one lecture week the local Church Pastor spoke about how he believes that depression ‘could’ also be self-inflicted by our own thoughts that we allow.

A female minister I follow, Clare Du Bois, receives visitations from the Lord similar to that recorded in the life and diary of St. Faustina Kowalska, and I found her ministry after praying over my life the following verse:

Jeremiah 33:3:

³ ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

Below are some words claimed to be from Jesus to her on depression.

In Clare’s message titled: A Love Letter to You

“Heart dwellers, I want you to understand fully, there is not a moment that goes by when a demon is not tormenting you with thoughts or planning the next thing, they can do to separate you from Me. You live in a war zone that is always active. That is why when a soul goes to Heaven they are overwhelmed with peace and joy, because for once in their lives they are not being pelted with fiery darts, poisoned with self-hatred. That is why I speak on this so many times, because you will never fully understand why you struggle with depression and lack of joy or inspiration.

“When you feel that way, all I want to do is embrace you and smother you in My Love and gratitude that you truly are Mine and you truly do care for Me and want to live a life pleasing to Me. That is why you walk around with darts piercing your body and mind, you want to live for Me, and they hate you for that. They know that if you get close to Me, I will love on you and heal you, inspire you, reinstate you, encourage you, pick you up and put you on your own two feet again. So, their favorite line of attack is to make you feel worthless and rejected by Me.

“No matter what you have ever done, you are NEVER worthless. I died on a cross for you, a death full of torment, because I love you and want you in Heaven with Me. I knew you would never pay the price for your sins, so I did. And for this, Satan hates you and studies carefully how to make you fall or fail so that he can drag you down into Hell with his miserable self.

So, depression is part of Spiritual Warfare, and our thoughts do contribute to how long and tough the effects are, whether one is more disposed to it or not. When I ‘truly’ accepted Jesus into my heart, the enemy knew exactly where to attack me because they had notes on me for my entire life of the words and thoughts that hurt me. Of-course when I became a threat to the enemy, they increased these attacks.

STAYING CALM

Getting back to the YWAM student, when we were talking once, I simply asked what he thought about the Pastor saying our thoughts ‘could’ affect our depression and he absolutely lost it in a fit of rage. Threatening to hurt me and then stormed out of the building, I could feel the anger in the room. I couldn’t even believe what was happening, how someone could just lose it like that with almost no effort at all.

I didn’t feel any condemnation and felt the Lord said that I didn’t do anything wrong. I ended up getting chastised by one of the leaders there because He said I should not have brought it up. Of course I disagreed, running away from these discussions is not the answer and my leader should have chastised the student, not me. I thought that was un-called for since the reaction was way over the top and improper, but I understood they were just trying to keep the peace but it didn’t feel like proper leadership.

Eventually the classmate came back, I apologized but he never did to me for his reaction. I guess he thought the threat of assault over a little question was justified. So I just kind of laughed internally and let it go. This wouldn’t be the last time on my YWAM trip where my light words would set someone off. The second time being a girl I had to clean the kitchen with. For me cleaning is a mundane and boring task so I wanted to just get it done and so I would have headphones in while cleaning.

Well, my first day cleaning with this female classmate, she asked that I take my headphones off during the cleaning. I didn’t understand why, but to keep the peace I said sure but that it was a buzzkill. She didn’t like that apparently and didn’t talk to me the rest of that cleaning session and getting back to the classroom I could tell she was emotional and crying over just that little situation. Something that didn’t even register to me as an issue at all. I actually couldn’t believe it was happening.

So, I apologized again, and we cleared that situation. Personally, I think it was because this girl may have had interest in me and wanted to communicate with me, but I sensed that and wanted the headphones in to also block the interest since I just wasn’t feeling the same. I just wanted to get cleaning done and get on with my life.

DON’T BE AN EGGSHELL

What guys and girls need to understand is that your lack of tolerance, to be brought to an emotional wreck over simple comments will negatively affect your ability to have deep and long relationships. For example, with these two situations, I can’t have deep conversations with those people since it’s like walking on eggshells.

If triggering is a problem with someone, I will tend to avoid them or keep them at surface level, since the possibility of drama is something, as a man I will avoid at all costs. MEN DON’T LIKE DRAMA! Adults should be able to process these things without anger or crying.

The solution is to spend time with those that trigger you. You need to be challenged and pushed to deal with these situations. I recommend all who struggle with triggers to do this, for themselves and for others. If not, you will find yourself more and more isolated and alone as you continue to avoid your triggers when you should have mastery over them. That’s something you probably don’t want to hear, maybe you just got angry reading it, if so, that’s one way to know what I am saying is true.

CONCLUSION

Well, there’s my thoughts and experience on being a tolerant person. I am not sure why I wrote this entry, but it was on my mind to talk about, maybe it will resonate with someone out there. Chase your best self like Jesus does and here is some music on that.