When you decide to date someone you have to accept them for who they are and where they are. Then you gotta become a student of them. A relationship is a learning environment. Tension comes when a person gets with someone and then they try to make them be who they want them to be. You wasn’t born to be in somebody’s boxed idea of you. You was born to be YOU!
My thought on that is, if they aren't what you want then go get with what and who you want. I never understood that.
You gotta accept people for who they are.
It’s one of my dating speeches. I tell guys, Listen! I’m not intimidated by no woman and I’m secure in who I am so imma be me. If you see someone else you want or you like more than what you see in me, then by all means do ya thang! Because I’m not gonna change who I am.
There’s nothing worse than trying to be in relationship with someone who won’t become a student of you. I love it when someone shows that they have been paying attention in class. What I mean by that is that they speak on something that they learned about me either by observation or conversation.
Deciding to date someone is like signing up for a class on a specific subject. The person you are dating is the subject that you will be learning about.
If you’re too lazy to learn, the relationship will be lost.
This requires patience from both parties. You have to be patient while you learn and the other person has to be patient while being studied. Some people have this false reality that they are gonna be a success relationally without becoming a student.
One time this guy got mad at me because I didn’t record him while he was running around the track. What it balled down to was it hit one of his childhood triggers, he was mad because his dad never recorded him playing football. But I had to tell’em, I said, “um, I only been knowing you for a couple of months, so I didn’t know that was important to you.” Duh!!! Like how would I have known that unless he told me, or he could have just been a grown-up and asked me to record him.
Ya’ll already know, I shut that one down.
You can’t expect somebody to learn you overnight.
If he had asked me to record him, or had I known about the childhood memory, I probably would have asked some other questions and caught the fact that he likes being recorded while running.
Problems arise in relationships when the person you are dating has signed up for your class but hasn't paid any attention. I know of a married couple who had been married for 10 years and the wife still didn’t know things about the husband that she should have known. I couldn’t understand how you live with somebody that long and still not learn some of their ways. Well it was because she wasn’t paying attention.
It's like when Jesus checked one of the disciples in John 14:9. He said, "how long you going be with me and you still asking me to show you the Father?" He said, “when you see me you see the Father.”
Basically Jesus was saying, all this time you've been around me and you haven't learned this. The disciple Philip wasn’t paying attention in class because if he were, he wouldn’t have asked that question. The whole purpose of the disciples being in Jesus' presence was to learn lessons. Jesus was teaching and showing Him who He was. He was showing them the Father the whole time.
One of the primary purposes of being in someone's presence is so that you may learn them and they can learn you.
Some things are taught but then there are some things that are caught.
I don't always have time to tell every detail, but if you are paying attention to what I say, if you are paying attention to what I do and how I flow, you can catch it, you can catch me.
Lovers are learners.
A major part of loving someone is learning them. Don’t say you love if you aren’t willing to learn. You must become a student of the person you are dating. You cannot successfully relate to someone you don't know.
Jesus said in Matthew 11:29 KJV, “take my yoke upon you, and learn of me..”
There’s no deadline on that. He didn’t say learn of me until you reach a certain age and stage. So you should always be a student of your partner because people change. My favorite color this year may not be the same color 3 years from now.
You can’t keep people where you met them. You have to be willing to grow on the go.
As the person changes you have to change with them.
You have to be willing to learn the person to understand them. The bible says in all thy knowing to get understanding. You can’t handle a human you don’t understand.
Be a lifelong learner of your lifelong partner!
