Monday, March 18th | Let’s Spill the Tea!

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A healthier, happier you is just a click away. With that said, let's start the show. You're listening to Clearview today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. And you can find our show at ClearviewTodayShow.com. You can send us an email at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com on that same website. Or if you'd like to write in and let us know what you're thinking about the show, or have your questions answered on the air, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right, you guys can help us keep the conversation moving forward by supporting the show.

You can do that by sharing it online, leaving us a good review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere you get your podcasting content from. Today is March the 18th, which means that our date the word is coming from 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 18. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To Him be the glory both now and forever. You know, that's really the whole theme of 2 Peter. If you've been listening to the show, we just did a very extensive, I think multi-week series going through just the first chapter. A deep dive into the first chapter. A deep dive into the first chapter of 2 Peter.

And that really is the goal. You grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You don't grow just because you've earned it or because you've made the right decisions, and so therefore you grow.

It's by His grace. And it's in His knowledge that we grow. Yeah, and a lot of times people will look at like, we want to glorify God, and we're told we need to glorify God in your life. What does that look like?

What does that mean? Those episodes through 2 Peter have really helped us out with the spiritual disciplines in our life. And how those play out, that's how you glorify God.

It's not just some ethereal concept that we can't put our finger on. No, it's showing things like self-control. It's showing things like knowledge. It's showing things like love and brotherly kindness. Those are all the ways that we grow.

And then turn that spiritual growth back around as a way to glorify God. Amen, amen. That is your Date the Word for today. And I just want to remind you guys, you can download the Date the Word app.

It's 100% free right now on iPhone and Android. Every single day connects today's date to God's Word with the hope of making it more memorable for you. As you guys know, today is Monday, and we don't have a regular segment for Monday. Oh, wait!

Yes, we do! We're starting out. Well, I haven't actually told Ryan about it yet. He's finding out about it the exact same time. It's happening in real time.

This really is happening in real time. We've got a brand new segment from Mondays. It's called All the Small Things.

All the Small Things. Opa Tom DeLonge style. Mondays are tough, Ryan. Mondays are tough for a lot of people. Garfield style. I hate Mondays.

I'm not going to lie. We love Mondays. Mondays is our day off. So after Sunday, we get Monday off.

So that's pretty good. Monday is nice. But Mondays can be really tough. So as you're driving to work, or you're working out in the gym, or you're getting ready to face the week, we want to just remind you of some of the small things in life that God has given us to enjoy.

It's almost the inverse of the grapevine. Oh, okay. So just like little things that you can enjoy. The little things in life that you can enjoy. I'm going to start with the negative one.

All the small things. Ooh, this might be my new favorite segment. I like it.

And we can end by going nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah. I think that might be copyrighted. Possibly. It could be. It could be. Here's, here's one thing that I really love.

And it is, it's kind of negative in nature. Oh no. I love when you sit down at a restaurant and there's a group of, I'm going to say people, but I really mean women, at the table next to you, gossiping loudly. I love that. I will ignore anybody that I'm with at that table, tuned in, listening to gossip at the next day.

I can verify that that is actually true. So, uh, we were at NRB a few weeks ago and John, Ellie and I are sitting at dinner and we're talking about the week and we're trying to strategize. And Ellie and I are looking at like, like seconds coming up on the app, like here, you do this and we'll do that. And, and John is, he's nodding his head and he's making eye contact with us, but he is not present at the table because right next to us was an intense conversation.

Very intense. Between two women who are not upset, really one woman who was, who was upset and her friend who was sort of validating and egging that on. So this young woman, I'm not going to go into it because it's not fit for the podcast or the table, but it was two young women who were not part of NRB.

They were just staying at the Gaylord Opryland. And, uh, she had had a encounter with her, I assume now ex-boyfriend, uh, where he was, he could be her ex. He could be her never was. Yeah, no, I don't know what in the world, but she, I tell you that she was not happy with him and she was letting this girl have it. She, she drugged this guy's name through the mud talking about how he looked, how little money he had in his bank account, how he wanted to her to like, uh, come to his place and hang out. And she wasn't into that.

And he hadn't taken her out to dinner and all this stuff that this dude did wrong. And the other girl was like, I mean, that's, that's just pathetic. It's time to grow up. And she was like, right. It's time to grow up.

Like, I'm sorry that you're immature. That's not my fault. And I was just eating it up. He was enthralled.

I was so enthralled. And you know, when you, cause you don't look over there, but you're like, you're, you're like, you're like, keep cutting eyes over there. And then when they look in your direction, you go, look back away.

I just love it. That is one of the, I don't know why, but that's one of the tiny small pleasures of life that I look forward to. This is especially great if you are somewhere with your spouse.

Yes. If it's just you and your spouse somewhere, like you're on a date or something, and then like the booth behind you is just having this knockdown drag out fight. Like you don't want them to have a fight. Like I don't want anybody to have any kind of relationship problems. I don't want anybody to have any, you know, strife in their life, but if I can sort of bear witness to it on the side, I mean, I'm not going to lie like that.

That's, it's like daytime TV drama, but happening in real life. I love it. I love it. That's just one of the, that's one of the small things in life that I love. That falls into the guilty pleasure category. What are some of your Monday guilty pleasures? What are some of the small things in life that God has given you to enjoy? I don't know if the Lord has given me that, but I definitely love it.

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Amen. Let's hop back into the show. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, a daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can visit us online at cleaviewtodayshow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right, and we are right here in our Clear View Today studio in North Carolina with Dr. Abbadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. Dr. Shah, we started a new Monday segment called All the Small Things, Blink 182 style. And we wanted to ask you, have you ever been at a restaurant with Nicole or someone else and you hear... Give the set up of the segment first.

Oh, yeah. So the segment is, these are the little... Well, I don't want to because it kind of makes me look like a hypocrite. It's supposed to be the little things in life that bring you joy. I don't know if this is really something that should bring me joy, but have you ever been in a restaurant and you hear people spilling drama, or as the kids would say, spilling tea at the other table? When you hear that, do you try to tune it out and focus on who you're talking to or do you kind of tune in?

That's a great question. Personally, I'm one of those very... What's the word? I'm just not interested in other people's drama.

Really? No. I just don't get into it.

I don't know why. It's like when I hear that, I have to weigh it out and say to myself, is this going to benefit me? Is this going to bring any revenue?

Is it going to build God's kingdom? Then I don't need it. So you're not interested at all.

Got you. Now, if I know the person... If they're talking about someone you might know. Then, of course, I'm going to lean in, especially if it's about me, then definitely I'm into it.

Who are you talking to? But the other, there's a piddly stuff. I'm like, yeah.

Not interested. That's a good point because a lot of times, people are so focused on not just spilling the tea, but collecting other people's tea and knowing every little thing and being able to sort of leverage that against people. I mean, that's such toxic behavior. Yeah, it is.

And you know what's funny? This is kind of what we're talking about today. There's some people who genuinely thrive on that.

Now it's... Misinformation. Yeah, absolutely. They want the chaos and they want the drama, not only with other people, but with people they know and have to live with. And they're the ones who first tell you, I don't like no drama.

Yeah. But they're the first ones to start a drama and keep it going. Love it.

They love to stir that pot. Once that tea starts getting poured, you're first in line for a piping hot cup. When it comes to tea, Dr. Shaw, what is your encouragement for the people, or your daily encouragement for people listening to this episode? Drink tea. Very nice.

Very nice. Actually, that's coffee. No, I would say just every morning when you get up, take some moment just to peacefully just sit there. True.

Okay? And meditate on God. Now, of course, I'm not talking about your devotional time that's going to come, your prayer time, reading the Bible, maybe a good devotional solid book that you can read. But even before all that, when you're lying in bed, you're about to get up, the alarm's gone off.

Take about good 20, 30 seconds just to lie there. And think about how God has been good to you. Don't immediately run to your phone and start scrolling through the messages. You're not that important.

But my Snapchat. No, you're right. You're 100% right. Because this little thing right here, it's almost like a portal to let toxic people into your life. It's like an invitation just to let toxic people come in and put their... I love the way that you've said it in the past. You let people use your ear as a garbage can.

Yeah. And before you know it, your day is gone even before it started. Your mind is gone. Your heart is not there.

You don't have the motivation to jump up and start rolling. It's not a wonderful world. In fact, it's pretty... I'm so lonesome I could cry. Hank Williams. Hank Williams. Gone is the old satch.

In with Mr. Hank. So that's called toxic behavior. How do you deal with toxic people? I mean, because I love that encouragement to take that time to get alone with God.

But then what happens when I have to go out into the world? You do run into them. You have encountered them.

Your day is now speedily going downhill, picking up a lot of momentum and snow. First, you have to recognize them for who they are. You have to recognize that this is a toxic person. Now, toxicity comes in many different shapes, okay? And Dr. Travis Bradbury, who has a double PhD in clinical and industrial organizational psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology. He's also the author of the bestseller called Emotional Intelligence 2.0. He identifies 10 kinds of toxic people.

That's a lot. I thought toxic was just sort of a general term. I think it has become that. But yeah, there's definitely people who are toxic in different ways. Oh, he's toxic.

Oh, he's toxic. But it's more than that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So let's look at those 10 that Dr. Bradbury lists for us.

The first one is the gossip. And that's how we began this episode, right? Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. And those people who just, they really genuinely thrive on just... On either giving it or receiving it or both.

Yeah, yeah. Just tearing people down, you know? And it's one of the things, too, that it's a trap because it is fun. You know, nobody's ever going to say that it's not fun to gossip. And resisting that. It's finding the line between fun and harm. And they blend together so much. Because sometimes it can be really fun to harm people's reputations.

We like to poke fun at this, especially in the South. But those prayer requests and those prayer groups, be careful about your motivation. Like, I'm just sharing this so you can pray. Are you really?

I mean, really, really check your heart. Check your motivation for sharing that prayer request. Is it so that you can pray or is it so that you can talk about this person? Right. Second person is the temperamental person. Now, we call this person a bipolar or something like that.

But that's a very technical term that's reserved for something that has to be diagnosed and all that. But temperamental is somebody who is one moment happy, another moment not. One moment they're good with you, another moment they're angry with you.

That's a temperamental person. They're hot and they're cold. They're yes and they're no. They're in, then they're out.

Why are you looking at me? They're up when they're down. There you go. Thank you. They're up when they're right.

It's black and it's white. Is that a song? Yeah.

I was like, what are we going with this? That's a song. It's Katy Perry, arguably another temperamental person. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She is sort of hot and cold herself.

Maybe that's the point of the song. She's the pot calling the kettle black. She's a little toxic. But no, she needs the Lord. Yeah. The victim. Here's another person who is toxic. All perpetual victim.

There's always something bad happening to me. Did you hear that? Did you know? What's that? And we think this person just needs, that's just them.

No, they're toxic. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Because it's very rarely circumstance. It's a person. Someone is doing this to me. Someone is attacking me. Someone is always.

And there's always an implied action step. Yeah. I'm the victim. So you need to fill in the blank. Do something for me. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. You don't like me. I know. I'm a burden to you.

So I'm sorry, but I'm so sorry. Yeah. And you think that doesn't drain on you. It absolutely drains on you. It's tiring. It's exhausting to have to deal with victims.

And the thing is, there's so many of them because it gives you a sense of unearned superiority. Yeah. Morally.

Yeah. There are victims. There are victims.

And here's the sad part. True victims usually don't talk about themselves. They don't. Because they don't want that. They know that when something really happens to you, other people's sympathy like that isn't the drug that you need. So the ones who do, they're playing the victim, hence they are toxic, but they're not the true victims.

That's a great point. Yeah. The other one is the self-absorbed. By definition, what does that mean? It means you're selfish. You think about yourself, self-focused. And it is one of those that's hard to kind of look in the mirror, but then like I do, I look in the mirror all the time and I'm like, you know, a lot of the decisions I make and the thoughts that I think are based on making me more comfortable or making my life easier. And it's all about me.

You know what I mean? I don't know if that's just the millennial trap or if that's a personal thing, but I definitely see that about myself. Not that I think that I'm great, but everything I do is designed on improving or lessening.

Like improving my life or my station or lessening the obstacles that are going to come into life. Yeah. I can certainly see that in millennials. I mean, John, you and I are both millennials. I can see that in our generation, but I think it's also, you know, just Western culture. We're kind of brought up in that individualistic mindset. Everything is you're your own boss, you're the master of your destiny, you chart your own course.

And there's a sense in which that's all well and good. But when you are trained to be self-focused, I mean, it's very easy for that to turn negative. I think it can be a generational thing because I don't see older people, like my parents, they have no shame in answering to someone, being accountable to someone. But I feel like millennials do.

A lot of millennials, if they feel like, hey, this person is my boss or my pastor or my supervisor or this person is in charge of me, there's a level of shame that comes with that because that person's not me. Yeah. Or this person gets to tell me how to live. Right. And it's very frustrating to somebody who is self-absorbed because it's like, you're controlling the life. If only I didn't have you in my life, I could be doing so much more.

But this is a necessary evil that I have you in my life. But that person is really a self-absorbed person. That's right. And that person is also naive. That person is also, how do I say it, they're just not mature. They just don't get it. They don't get what it takes to get to a certain place. And so they tend to look at other people as just a hurdle, a hurdle, your problem.

True. The other one is envious. This is also a toxic person. An envious person is they're always wanting what you have. I've been around people like that.

It's exhausting. Oh, yeah. And I think it's one of the more, I mean, they're all dangerous people, but the envious people, I don't want to say they scare me, but I'm very wary of them because, and I think this is something that you've pointed out on the show many times is that they are typically not the ones who get the comeuppance, it's the person being envied. So if I envy you, you typically are the one who ends up paying the price for my sin. And it's a very, I think, unique sin in that way.

Yeah. Now don't misunderstand. Jealousy is different. Jealousy is I have something that I'm not going to share with you. Our God is a jealous God, right? He's not going to share that priority of being the one only true God, triune God with anybody else, hence the first commandment. But envious is you have something that I want.

God is not envious because there's nothing in us that God says, Hey, oh, I wish I had that. Right. Right. Now he wants to have a relationship with us. He wants to redeem us and all that, but it's not because he wants to somehow use us for himself. Right. His station is not lessened just because we don't have a relationship with him.

Great, great, great way to say that. Another kind of toxic person in this list of 10 by Dr. Travis Bradbury is the manipulator. The puppet master, the schemer.

Yeah. You're constantly trying to get something out of you and they don't have to be people on drugs. They don't have to be people with bad habits and all that. It can also be a person who just cannot help but manipulate you constantly something somewhere they're trying to use you.

This is the kind of person who sucks the life out of the room by the negativity and pessimism. That's a dementor. Wow. Did y'all ever read the Phantom Tollbooth? You remember the doldrums? Like there was the place where you go and you just get stuck and it was like this place you go where everybody's lethargic, everybody is just kind of trapped. It's just slow moving place and once your little vehicle gets stuck there, that's it.

You're trapped. That reminds me of the, what is it, the swamp of despair or the swamp of something in Pilgrim's Progress? The slaw. Yeah, the slaw of despair where Pilgrim is trying to make his way through and he just hits that mire and he just can't make it through. That's what it is.

Yeah, that's the doldrums. It's the exact same idea and that's what dementors are like. Yeah. The next one is the twisted. The twisted person is, he says out to get you.

She just wants to make you feel bad or get something from you. That's a twisted person. This is the joker. Some men just want to watch the world burn. Yeah, because there's always going to be those people where it's like, you just don't make any sense. Yeah.

What is your angle? What do you get out of this? Yes. Yes.

And I have definitely, you tend to think you don't want to ever have to deal with any of these people, but I've definitely dealt with people where I'll come back and I'll talk to Dr. Shah or Ryan or these guys and I'm like, I don't know what they gained. There was so much grief and heartache and fires to put out and they didn't gain anything and they're like, I don't want to gain anything. Right.

I think that was the gain, was the grief and the heartache and the fires to put out was just the chaos and the anarchy that was so. It's bizarre. Yeah. And then there's, of course, the judgmental person. Every time you're around them, they are somewhere on a moral high ground trying to judge you, call you out, or even if they're not saying it without saying, they make you feel small. And I feel like you'd meet a lot of these people in church that have the moral high ground. That can happen. That can happen. And then finally, the arrogant person.

Wow. And this is an interesting person because this is a person who is just focused on self. They're focused on their own agenda, trying to promote themselves, and they're just toxic. I mean, you get around them and you feel the pride just oozing out. I've been in places where you will say, no way, that person is arrogant. And then spend a few minutes with them and you'll be like, wow, yeah, they're arrogant. The way they talk to me, the way they acted towards me, the way they tried to make me feel small. I've had people like that.

It comes across very quickly. And I feel like sometimes, like you were saying, Dr. Shai, it comes across like an after the fact sort of thing. Like, why do I feel off? Oh, it's because I just dealt with an arrogant person. You kind of like recognize that we're using the example of a toxic person, but you're recognizing the toxins that are now in your system, like, I don't feel like myself. I don't feel like the world is a little bit dimmer.

The world is a little bit duller. Oh, I've just interacted with an arrogant person. Well, yeah, it's an interesting feeling to come face to face with sin that didn't originate in you directly. You know what I mean? It's someone else's sin that now I've been exposed to. And because we're all familiar with guilt in the sense of, I know this sin originated in me. And so we start to justify and we start to downplay it. And it's like, well, I can sort of rationalize it.

But then when you just see like raw exposed sin coming from someone else and you start to realize what's happening, it's like, oh, wow. Yeah. I can give you a story. Yeah. This is when I was elected to be the moderator of now sort of the defunct association. And I was only 26 years of age, I think.

I think so. It was 2004. So I was, no, I'm sorry, more than that. I was 31 years old, 31 years old, 30 years old, maybe. And they asked me to be the moderator.

I mean, that's a huge thing. For one, I'm not from around here. I'm from India. I'm 30 years old and I'm pastoring a very small church with maybe 25 people. And so I'm a nobody who's got asked to be the moderator.

They voted for me. I'm in the office. So I'm feeling pretty good. And as the meeting is over, it's adjourned and I am picking up my stuff from the platform, from the pulpit of this church and sort of people are coming by and congratulating me because it's a big deal. And as I'm standing there, this one guy comes by who was a pastor, not anymore, but he was at the time and he says, let me see that gavel. So I gave him the gavel and he kind of wraps it on the table a couple of times.

That's what it feels like. Okay. All right. Well, you know, they asked me first, right? I was like, oh wow.

You took the time to come tell me that they asked you first to be the moderator. That was important to him that you knew that. He wanted me to feel that.

Wow. And I just kind of stood there and I was like, I didn't say anything. I just kind of like shrugged my shoulders and kind of, what he was saying was, I know you got it, but it's because I turned it down and it's not worth my time. This is really important to you, but I want you to know that it shouldn't be because it's either not important to me or it was important to me.

I couldn't get it, but I don't want it to be, I don't want you to feel good about having it. Oh, that's really bad behavior. It was, and unfortunately it bothered me because I was like, what just happened? Why would a person say that?

What would possess you to take the time, walk up to me instead of congratulating me to say that? Something is not right in your heart. Yeah.

Yeah. And it takes a toll afterwards because it doesn't, it's not like I go to bed that night and then I wake up and I'm all good from it. It takes a toll on like your health and your spiritual life and your, just your wellness overall. So in regards to that story, Dr. Shah, what, what helped you? Could you mention that that upset you dealing with that toxic person?

What helped you? And then how do we then deal with toxic people? To be very honest, I would like to do another show on this.

Yeah, let's do it. There's a lot there, but here's what I would say in the meantime, because you may hit one on the way home as you're listening. You may hit one at a neighborhood meeting or at your church. It may be in your workplace, you having to deal with it day after day.

So here's the thing. Always be prepared to face toxic people. True. I've learned my lesson and so now I'm always aware, especially in high moments, especially when things are going great. I'm always prepared for that toxic person because that's God's way of humbling me, keeping me grounded.

So I'm ready when that person comes and that person is not the same person each time and maybe somebody different. True. So I try not to ignore them or just keep them at arm's length.

Instead I learned their behavior patterns and established a proper or essential emotional boundaries. That's true. Like I am not going to let you get past this point because I can, but I'm not Jesus. I'm not God.

I cannot withstand your attack. So I'm just going to sort of know how much of you I can let in and how much I have to block. True. That's true.

And establish those boundaries in your mind. Yeah. I love this. So helpful for us.

Yeah. And definitely we need to do more. Let's do it. Let's dig into it some more.

Let's do this. I love that. Hopefully today was helpful for you guys. Maybe some of you are thinking about the toxic people that you have to interact with on a daily basis.

Maybe it's helped you recognize toxicity when you didn't quite see it before. Hopefully that was helpful for you. Write in and let us know what you got from today's episode, two five two five eight two five zero two eight, or you can visit us online at clearviewtodayshow.com. I also want to encourage you guys to go to the bottom, click that donate button and become a part of our Clear View Today Show family. Every gift that you give goes directly to supporting this radio show and reaching people with the hope of Jesus Christ. Also want you to visit mightymuscadine.com. They're the sponsors for today's show.

Check out the line of products that they have. Use the promo code today when you check out. That's T O D A Y. It's going to get you a discount and a portion of that purchase coming right back here to The Theory Today Show.

John, I think you know the answer to this, but tomorrow's episode? Yeah. We're going to be diving in again because guess what? It's not only enough to recognize that there are toxic people.

You got to learn how to set those boundaries. We're going to talk about that a little bit tomorrow. We got to deal with it and can't wait for you guys to be there.

We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearly Today. We'll see you tomorrow. We'll see you tomorrow.