Prophesy And Proclaim

Tres Brown

“Lord, why are there so many people in my life that have a spirit of manipulation and control?”

If you find yourself surrounded by “friends” who only care about their needs and wants, that’s not by chance. God is trying to tell you something.

This is the Word of The Lord: God is not going to reward you in life if you don’t value yourself.

It is human nature to take advantage of people. If someone came to me and said, ‘Please be my friend! I’ll do anything for you.’ I would automatically think of things I could make that person do. I wouldn’t want to be their friend, but it would be very easy for me to manipulate them and use that individual for my greedy, selfish desires.

That’s what goes on in the minds of other people when you’re desprate for validation and acceptance from them.

No matter what the purpose for the interaction is, being submissive to other people in that respect will result in the same dead end: being used at no benefit to you.

This is where the issue begins. When we are desperate for other people, we don’t set limits to what they should expect us to do. What does that mean? It means we don’t set boundaries. When we don’t do that, we let people think, ‘He’s not going to tell me no, so Ill ask for more and more.” Of course, if you’re afraid of being rude, or you don’t want your pal to stop hanging out with you, you won’t set boundaries in the friendship. Why? Because you feel like THEY have the control. 

A true friend will respect the fact that they are not your only priority and will let you attend to your business. A selfish friend will hold you for hours because that person is using a form of control. ‘I’m going to MAKE you pay attention to me, whether you want to or not.’

A true friend might slip up once in a while, but if you express your concerns with them, the situation should dissipate. Those who dont care about your well-being will do this routinely.

Conditioning is when you train a person to do or avoid something by enforcing consequences. 

I used to condition my friends that they could use my hoop to play basketball but not respect me. Now I realize, respect is a mandatory part of relationship. You should too.

Until next time my brothers and sisters