Dharius Daniels - Managing Chronic Disappointment

So for me, let’s say as a pastoral leader, I would not just spiritually lead people but also emotionally invest in them. Yeah, right. At times, it may seem like I am using this word—maybe a bit inconsiderate. So how much of your studying, when you started, was gained through experience versus how much was just what you learned from the Word? I would say it started with experience, and my experience drove me to the Word for solutions. I needed solutions for my own life personally because, you know, this is one of the things I’m framing: this is not a complaint; I am grateful for what we do. I feel privileged to do it. I believe it is a gift from God that He has graciously given me. However, I also don’t want to sanitize this assignment either. For me, as a pastoral leader, I would not just spiritually lead people but also emotionally invest in them. Yeah, right. At times, some people seem a bit inconsiderate. I will use that term. So, regarding that emotional investment, it was almost expected that I care when they were present and to not care when they were absent. I realized I needed to find a way to manage what would inevitably lead to some chronic disappointment I would have to live with in this role. The only way for me not to be disappointed is to stop caring about people, and I am not going to come to this assignment without bringing my heart with me. So I knew, okay, I can’t stop caring, but I need to be more judicious. I need to be wiser. Here’s the word: I need to be more discerning about where to make certain kinds of investments. This realization drove me into the Word for solutions. There are certain principles I started pulling out of stories and statements in the Bible. Here’s one of them: everyone is to be loved biblically or valued biblically, but treated differently.

Now, this is what I mean by that. When I say treat them differently, we could argue Jesus loved everyone equally. When I say love, I’m not talking about phileo or whatever because you shouldn’t phileo everybody; you shouldn’t eros everybody, right? But I’m talking about agape. So He loved everyone equally. For example, in John 5, everyone at that pool of Bethesda was loved equally, but He did not treat them similarly. He had to step over and walk around other people who were sick to get to the one who had been there for 38 years and then asked him, «Do you want to be made whole?» What is He doing? He’s asking a clarifying question—it’s a form of discernment. Some discernment isn’t spiritual; it’s natural, right?

He asked: «Do you want to be made whole?» There are criteria that need to be met that determine what kind of investment I’m going to make here. When I noticed Jesus doing things like that, and having 12 apostles but three, whom historians call the Inner Circle—Peter, James, and John—taking them to the Mount of Transfiguration, and not giving the other nine an explanation as to why they couldn’t go, it struck me. He also took them to the Garden of Gethsemane and did not provide an explanation to the others. He loved them all equally but treated them differently.

Once I saw that, it gave me permission to say I owe everybody love, right? But I do not owe everyone access to certain places in my heart or a type of investment that is reserved for those who meet the criteria that the scriptures lay out for making such investments. It revolutionized the way I approach relationships, and I’ll be honest with you; I feel it has changed and, in some sense, saved my emotional life.

That is so good! In the book, Darius, you actually break down all of these relationships. I love how you say the access must be defined, then discerned, then aligned, and then activated. You’ve got to categorize them, put them in slots, and stick with it, right? Yeah, boundaries. You know, boundaries! I wish I had talked to you before I wrote the book because that would have definitely been a word I used more. I read Henry Cloud’s book on boundaries, and I have about five books, Darius, that I tell people changed my life. I have read a lot of books.