When the Spirit is used as a manipulative tool

[MustardSeed]

15 hours ago, BlueDreams said:

Oh he wasn’t my boyfriend. Ever. He was just a friend that kept developing crushes on me over several years. No matter how much i would reassert that I wasn’t interested in him like that, it would happen again. The last one was the only one he interpreted his spiritual answer to stay friends with me to possibly mean we’d end up together.

i personally don’t doubt that he received revelation to stay friends with me...i doubted his interpretation of what that meant for us long-term. 

I’m not sure what you mean by revealing our own truth. What does that look like to you? 

For me when I finally did meet my husband   we had a very very short dating period...of which I wasn’t dating him exclusively and neither of us would consider ourselves bd/gf. I don’t think the opinion you gave fits my personal experience. The experience was inherently spiritually contrived and strongly confirmed. The short story is that our future daughter helped set us up. And in the temple when i went to confirm it i came away knowing that what i was receiving was a gift from God. And that i would need go treat it as such.

I don’t know how marriage partners work with God...or even if it’s the same thing for each person. For me I didn’t describe him as a soul mate. But I definitely felt like i knew him for far longer than i did. I described him as my PB Did: my best friend...for longer than the 13 days we dated before getting unofficially  engaged.

 

with luv,

Bd

Beautiful story! Your experience supports a more predestined foreplanned (fate?not the negative kind) view of the eternities, more of a meant-to-be paradigm than my view.   I can live with differences ❤️

Ps Revealing own truth to me means authenticity, the absence of defenses, vulnerable clarity of ones own desires interests intentions and so forth.

 Edited to add I believe in an internal locus of control. 

Edited July 28, 2019 by MustardSeed

[BlueDreams]

15 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

Beautiful story! Your experience supports a more predestined foreplanned (fate?not the negative kind) view of the eternities, more of a meant-to-be paradigm than my view.   I can live with differences ❤️

Ps Revealing own truth to me means authenticity, the absence of defenses, vulnerable clarity of ones own desires interests intentions and so forth.

 Edited to add I believe in an internal locus of control. 

I’d agree. I also call it the fairy tale variety. And i do mean it in a more derogatory sense. Or at least the incredulous version. FWIW I never really subscribed to the experience of courtship and marriage that i ended up getting. I thought people who married basic strangers were foolish and that you can’t really be in love...you were really in lust or infatuation. I would have probably mostly agreed with your paradigm....

until God did a number on me. 

Now i think my paradigm is that of following God and letting that path unfold as it will. For some that may very well entail the method of love and revelation that you described. For others it may look entirely different. it may entail something altogether different. 

Tying back to using the spirit in manipulative fashion. I think part of that is assuming a one-size-fits-all paradigm. As in how one assumes the spirit must interact with people must be exactly the same and make sense to our understanding. I think in that assertion it’s far easier to try and insist our hopes and expectations on another

 

With luv, 

BD 

[MustardSeed]

46 minutes ago, BlueDreams said:

I’d agree. I also call it the fairy tale variety. And i do mean it in a more derogatory sense. Or at least the incredulous version. FWIW I never really subscribed to the experience of courtship and marriage that i ended up getting. I thought people who married basic strangers were foolish and that you can’t really be in love...you were really in lust or infatuation. I would have probably mostly agreed with your paradigm....

until God did a number on me. 

Now i think my paradigm is that of following God and letting that path unfold as it will. For some that may very well entail the method of love and revelation that you described. For others it may look entirely different. it may entail something altogether different. 

Tying back to using the spirit in manipulative fashion. I think part of that is assuming a one-size-fits-all paradigm. As in how one assumes the spirit must interact with people must be exactly the same and make sense to our understanding. I think in that assertion it’s far easier to try and insist our hopes and expectations on another

 

With luv, 

BD 

Precisely.

[Stargazer]

On 7/25/2019 at 5:44 PM, Bernard Gui said:

“The Last Kingdom?”

Hadn't heard of that until now, so went looking for it on Wikipedia.  Wow, I must read this!  Thanks for pointing me at it!

[Stargazer]

There are many female posters on this board who come across as worthy in many ways. It wouldn't be difficult for any man of spiritual inclination to fall in love with you for your excellent qualities and mistake that for the Spirit.

[Stargazer]

On 7/27/2019 at 7:09 PM, BlueDreams said:

For me when I finally did meet my husband   we had a very very short dating period...of which I wasn’t dating him exclusively and neither of us would consider ourselves bd/gf. I don’t think the opinion you gave fits my personal experience. The experience was inherently spiritually contrived and strongly confirmed. The short story is that our future daughter helped set us up. And in the temple when i went to confirm it i came away knowing that what i was receiving was a gift from God. And that i would need go treat it as such.

My wife and I match each other closely in personality, which unfortunately tracks some of our negative traits like being lazy.  Since both of our late spouses were our opposites in these ways, and had similar personality to each other, my theory is that they met in the spirit world, became good friends, and arranged for us to meet and marry.  So that each of us would keep the other on the straight and narrow until the time we are reunited.

I love the idea that your daughter helped set you up!  

[MustardSeed]

38 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

There are many female posters on this board who come across as worthy in many ways. It wouldn't be difficult for any man of spiritual inclination to fall in love with you for your excellent qualities and mistake that for the Spirit.

I think slightly different than most. Perhaps The Spirit speaks to a person by saying, this person is a solid match for you.  

Said person then interprets this as, we are “supposed” to get married. 

I think one person can get legit confirmation that it’s a match and the other can get legit confirmation that it’s not. 

[Stargazer]

On 7/29/2019 at 12:48 PM, MustardSeed said:

I think slightly different than most. Perhaps The Spirit speaks to a person by saying, this person is a solid match for you.  

Said person then interprets this as, we are “supposed” to get married. 

I think one person can get legit confirmation that it’s a match and the other can get legit confirmation that it’s not. 

I agree with you. 

And in relation to your last statement, if I were married to someone who turned out not to be a good match after all, I would try my best to make it a match anyway.  I believe that our earthly personalities are actually only shadows of our eternal ones, and that we are bent and shaped while we are here by our physical limitations, whatever they are.  C.S. Lewis once wrote: "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship..."  And of course he followed this up with the opposite, but my point is that there is more to you or me than we can now appreciate.

[MustardSeed]

3 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I agree with you. 

And in relation to your last statement, if I were married to someone who turned out not to be a good match after all, I would try my best to make it a match anyway.  I believe that our earthly personalities are actually only shadows of our eternal ones, and that we are bent and shaped while we are here by our physical limitations, whatever they are.  C.S. Lewis once wrote: "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship..."  And of course he followed this up with the opposite, but my point is that there is more to you or me than we can now appreciate.

Beautiful.  ❤️

[Kenngo1969]

On 7/24/2019 at 3:08 PM, Duncan said:

prior to my marriage I had a blessing and in it it said, they we "were meant to be together" but the marriage failed. Does that mean that anyone else I marry I wasn't meant to be together? why would God say that if he knew we would end up getting divorced? I don't know what to believe now

A lot of "meaning" had to go on for you to be "meant" to be together in the first place, and for you to continue to be "meant" to be together.  Obviously, you "meant" to be together with your then-wife, or you wouldn't have asked her to marry you.  Obviously, she "meant" to be together with you, or she wouldn't have said yes.  Obviously, the two of you "meant" to be together with each other (at least for a time: Ay, there's the rub! Sorry! ), or you wouldn't have followed through with the commitment you agreed to initially by getting married, and one (or both) of you would have broken off the engagement instead.

Very few people (the only exceptions being those [warped, in my opinion] relative few who think their first wives or husbands make good "starter spouses") get married intending, at some point, to get divorced.  Notwithstanding the "until-death-do-you-part" language in traditional marriage vows, or even the more "mealy-mouthed" "as-long-as-your-love-shall-last" language in more recent marriage vows,  few couples think that even death, let alone anything else, will separate them or will dissolve their vows when they get married.

In your case, somewhere along the line, though, she decided she stopped being "meant" to be with you, even though you never decided you stopped being "meant" to be with her.  But, as the Great Philosopher once said, "It takes two."  Unfortunately, even the most heroic and "well-meant" efforts of just one won't suffice when "it takes two."  In sum, you can "mean" it; your spouse can "mean" it; but it's like any other covenant: The parties have to keep "meaning" it for it to continue have "meaning." 

There are people who have made covenants hereabouts but for whom those covenants no longer have the same "meaning" they once did.  I don't "mean" to judge them: I'll leave that to God.  But of course, I don't "mean" to minimize the pain you or your son feel because your wife decided she was no longer "meant" to be with you.  The only thing I can say (cold comfort though I recognize that it is) is that neither of you is responsible for her decision that she was no longer "meant" to be with you.  Very few events have independent "meaning" apart from the "meaning" that people attach to them, and just because other people attach a different "meaning" to an event than you do doesn't "mean" that you're wrong.

Talking about baptism, Nephi asks (paraphrasing, of course), "Great, you've entered through the gate!  Congratulations!  I would ask if all is done.  Nope.  You haven't come this far except through your faith in Christ, and you've got to continue to press forward having faith in Christ, and relying upon him, for it to work."  (See 2 Nephi 31:19-20.)  King Benjamin (Mosiah 4:11) and Alma (Alma 5:26) say essentially the same thing.  And, of course, one does not need to get divorced, to have a sealing cancelled, or to have one's name removed from the records of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in order to stop keeping a covenant.  There are plenty of people who are still married/sealed, baptized, et cetera, on paper, but who no longer keep covenants.  (They can fool everyone else on Earth, but they can't fool the Immortal Party to the covenant.)

I wish you well.

 

Edited August 3, 2019 by Kenngo1969

[Kenngo1969]

@Duncan Monsieur le Duncan:  

I caught the tail-end of this BYU-Idaho Devotional featuring Bro. Doug Mason.  He talks about the heartbreak he experienced when a few years ago, he says, his wife decided she didn't want to be married to him anymore.  While his experiences along those lines comprise a relatively small portion of the address, when he mentioned that (for what it's worth, but I do have a personal witness that the Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways ), I thought of you and of your situation.

As always, I wish you well.

http://www.byui.edu/devotionals/doug-mason

[Duncan]

1 hour ago, Kenngo1969 said:

@Duncan Monsieur le Duncan:  

I caught the tail-end of this BYU-Idaho Devotional featuring Bro. Doug Mason.  He talks about the heartbreak he experienced when a few years ago, he says, his wife decided she didn't want to be married to him anymore.  While his experiences along those lines comprise a relatively small portion of the address, when he mentioned that (for what it's worth, but I do have a personal witness that the Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways ), I thought of you and of your situation.

As always, I wish you well.

http://www.byui.edu/devotionals/doug-mason

oh thank you kindly my good man!

[Kenngo1969]

2 hours ago, Duncan said:

oh thank you kindly my good man!

Certainly, Sir.